


The Penny Well

by FISHnibWana



Category: IT - Stephen King, The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Big Brother Phillip Carlyle, Bisexual Phillip Carlyle, Circus Family Feels, Circus Train, Creepy Clown, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark Be Afraid of What's In IT, F/M, Family, Found Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pennywise Terrorizes the Circus, Psychological Horror, The Circus Terrorizes Pennywise, The Circus Train is an Awesome Place to Live, The Circus is the Original Loser's Club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 71,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26417773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FISHnibWana/pseuds/FISHnibWana
Summary: Life has been good to Phillip. He and Anne have started a family, their finances are finally secure, and the circus has been transformed into a highly successful travelling act. What's there left to be afraid of?Losing it all, that's what.OR, the circus goes up against a killer clown.
Relationships: Charity Barnum/P. T. Barnum, P. T. Barnum & Phillip Carlyle, Phillip Carlyle/Anne Wheeler
Comments: 103
Kudos: 58





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this fandom intensely and find that I just can't stay away! This tale is technically a crossover with Stephen King's IT, but knowledge of that fandom is not necessary. This story is very circus-centric and just happens to cross paths with the ultimate creepy clown. (In other words, I couldn't resist.) For readers of my previous works, this story agrees with, but does not require knowledge of, the "You Run With Me" series.
> 
> WARNING: This story contains instances of racism, homophobia, and occasional strong language and violence. Also, I own neither "The Greatest Showman" nor "IT."

**Prologue**

He can smell them coming down the tracks.

He can hear them, too, but that wouldn’t have told him much. On its own, that sound is merely the galumphing ratchet of locomotive wheels, accompanied by the usual _hush-shush_ of steam, distant yet distinct in the dawn silence.

The old man works himself out of his chair, grasping at the porch railing. Now billows of white steam rise and waft over the trees, like the clouds of a child’s daydream. And because the wind is just right, tipped cleverly his way, he can smell wild-animal scat and the sweeter underlying scent of hay.

He smiles, skin wrinkling in grotesque folds around his mouth. “Circus comin’ to town,” he says, and sticks his pipe between his teeth. There’s not much for an old man to do at this hour except watch and wait, and for the past thirty years he has been the first one to watch visitors amble into Derry – or, more likely, simply stumble upon it. And then he waits: waits to see what they will make of it…and what it will make of them.

“Circus comin’ to town,” he repeats, and eases himself back down to the porch swing, watching the train chug into view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for stopping by! Next chapter is already up!


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the circus train has engine trouble.

**Chapter 1**

Phillip Bailey wakes sharply with the red tilt of dawn on his face.

It’s hard to define with dream-tendrils lingering like a bad aftertaste

_(hurt pain fear RUN)_

but something’s not right. Phillip props himself up on one elbow, squinting painfully around the railcar. When he fell asleep last night they were steaming eastward, the familiar locomotive thrum easing him into slumber. And now his world stands still. Why?

Anne stirs next to him in the narrow cot. The neat curve of her swollen belly is pronounced under the blanket. “Phillip,” she murmurs. “What time is it?”

“Too early.” He kisses the brown hand strewn against the pillow. “Go back to sleep.”

“Did we stop?”

“Yes. I’m sure everything’s okay.”

Anne flutters away again, her breaths evening out. Phillip rummages for a pair of trousers and a shirt. Before leaving their railcar, he pokes his head around the curtain partition. Taylor is a four-year-old mess of dark curls and chubby limbs, tangled in a homemade quilt. Still fast asleep, one tiny hand clutches a favour from Caroline’s birthday party three days ago. Phillip lets the curtain fall back into place and slides the door open on a new scene.

The morning is brilliant, October-crisp. Phillip steps out, squinting against the dawn light. The railway tracks cut a grim swathe through the dense woods, the only sign of civilisation. He looks right, toward the caboose thirty-something ostentatious cars away, then left to the short stretch of train pointing east. P.T. Barnum is hanging off the locomotive, talking to the driver and one of the firemen. When he sees Phillip, he hops to the ground.

“Morning.” Phillip stifles a yawn. Circus performers keep late hours, and he’s never been an early riser. “Why did we stop?”

His partner’s clearly been up for a while, as usual. His shirt is untucked and his hair mussed, but his eyes are fully alert. “Broken boiler stays,” Barnum says shortly, jerking his head. “The sheets are coming off. From the looks of it, we’ll need to replace the boiler.”

Phillip hisses between his teeth.

“I know.” Barnum rubs his eyes. “Thank God they caught it, or we might have had an explosion on our hands.”

Phillip resists the urge to glance back at the car where his pregnant wife and child are sleeping. “How far are we from a town?” he asks instead.

“Derry’s about a mile and a half up the track. Good thing, too. Carting boiler parts through fifty miles of backcountry is not an experience I’d recommend.”

“Derry,” Phillip muses. They’re headed for Bangor, coming from Portland where they’ve just put on a two-week show. Phillip wouldn’t be able to place Derry on a map, to be honest; it’s too provincial, too backwater, like most of Maine. “How far is that from Bangor?”

“About twenty-five miles, I should say. Maybe a little more.”

“Damn.”

“I know,” Barnum repeats. He thrusts his hair back from his forehead. “Well, there’s nothing for it. We can’t move without our boiler.”

“Think Derry will have what we need?”

“I should hope so,” rasps a voice from behind him. “Trains and shipbuilding’s most of what we do.”

Phillip jerks back against the train, startled almost to the point of dismay. The old man chuckles, bracing one hand on his right thigh. “Sorry to startle you,” he croaks. “I got a bad habit of creepin’ up on folks. Comes of livin’ in the middle of nowhere, or close to it.” He surveys them from a distance of twenty yards, his hairless, hatless scalp glinting in the dawn glow. His ancient face is furrowed with deep wrinkles. “You got a spot of engine trouble?”

“As a matter of fact,” Barnum says, subtly craning his neck. Phillip sees what he’s looking at now: a neat little shack tucked away in the treeline, all but invisible to anyone not looking for it. “You live out here?”

“Ayuh. Thirty years this past June.” The old man chews the stem of his pipe, then abruptly upturns it and knocks out the ashes. “Got tired of everybody in Derry pokin’ into my business.”

Phillip and Barnum share an amused glance. This guy wouldn’t last an hour in New York.

The old man straightens and squints at them against the brightening sky. “You a circus?”

“ _The_ circus.” Barnum gestures at the line of train cars. _THE BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS,_ the siding declares in massive, fire-engine red. “It’s our fourth year on tour.”

“Ayuh, smelled you on the wind. Guess you got a whole whatchamacallit. Mangy-ree.”

“Menagerie,” Phillip corrects before he can stop himself, and then flushes a little as the old man looks at him. “Yes, you’re right. Elephants, lions, horses, a tiger, even a few monkeys.”

“Ain’t been to Derry before.”

“No, sir.”

“Nup,” the old man agrees. “Been down to Portland, though, I reckon.”

“We have,” Phillip confirms. “That was as far into Maine as we came last year. This year we thought we’d try for Bangor.”

The old man’s eyes gleam beneath his scraggly brows. “And got yourselves knee-deep in hick-shit.”

As Phillip stands there, utterly confused, Barnum throws back his head and brays a belly-laugh. The old man smiles, looking faintly pleased with himself. “Knee-deep in hick-shit,” he repeats. “Ayuh. Happens now’n then.”

“How far into town?” Barnum asks, pushing his hands into his pockets.

“You had it, young fella. ‘Bout a mile and a half, two thirds at the outside.”

“Young fella?” Phillip murmurs to Barnum, who shoots him an amused look.

“Who can we see in town for repairs?” Barnum asks, turning back to the old man. “I mean, who’s our best bet for a fast job done right?”

“Me, twenty year ago.” The old man smirks up at them. “Now? Sid Henson. Bright boy, good head on his shoulders, honest dirt under his nails. Also happens to be my son.” He nods at Barnum. “Looks like you got a good lad there yourself.”

This happens now and then – has ever since they began working together – but it’s always flustering. “Oh, we’re not,” Phillip begins, “I mean, that is to say…” He points with silent desperation at the side of the train where their names are emblazoned in bold glory.

“He means to say,” Barnum inserts into the puzzled silence, slinging an arm over Phillip’s shoulders and treating the old man to a dazzling grin, “that as much as it would be my honour to claim this young man’s paternity, I am bound to admit there’s not a drop of blood between us. This is my friend and business partner Phillip Bailey, formerly of the uptown Carlyles. And I…” Dramatic pause. “…am P.T. Barnum.”

“Ah.” The old man screws up his face shrewdly. “ _The_ Barnum and Bailey. Be damned.” He scuffs at a patch of grass with one faded boot. “ _I’m_ bound to say that one’s as like the other as two peas in a pod, Messrs. Circus. Though,” he adds upon reflection, “one grew a little bigger than the other.”

“Please God, make it stop,” Phillip mutters, and he feels Barnum’s chest hitch as he chokes back a laugh. It’s not that Phillip is displeased to be mistaken for Barnum’s son – far from it – but it has the unfortunate effect of opening him up to merriment for days after.

The old man is looking at him again, and a wry little grin twists one corner of his weathered lips. “S’ppose a fancy name like Carlyle wouldn’t look good in red,” he hints dryly.

“Something like that,” Phillip returns. The truth is, his father disowned him five years ago, not long after he proposed to Anne. Changing his name seemed the easiest way to put that behind him. “I have no regrets.”

“Haven’t lived long enough, then.” The old man spits on the grass, then extends his hand. “Ethelred Henson. Call me Red.” He pumps their hands, first Phillip’s, then Barnum’s. “Mention my name and you’ll get Sid – and save some time and money, I daresay.”

* * *

Barnum offers Red Henson breakfast, which the old man declines. The smells wafting over to his cabin, where he can still be seen rocking and smoking, must be tempting. The dining car is buzzing with activity by seven-thirty; with something like eighty performers, animal trainers, canvasmen, and workers to be fed, meals are no small task. The adjacent car, complete with an elaborate kitchen, is as hot as a furnace.

Over the cheerful cacophony, Barnum stands up to speak. Immediately Lettie brays a command for silence. “You’re probably all wondering why we’ve stopped in the middle of nowhere,” Barnum starts. _No shit_ rises from one table. “I won’t beat around the bush: this morning around six o’clock we blew out our boiler.”

A low groan makes it way around the dining car.

“Until we can get it replaced, we can’t move. Thankfully, we’re close to the town of Derry, which sees a fair bit of railway traffic. My hope is that we can make the necessary repairs and get underway within three or four days at the most.”

“Three or four days?” Charles pipes dubiously. “Sounds like Barnum humbug to me.”

Barnum’s mouth tightens. His patience is worn thin already; nothing frustrates him like having to sit still. “We won’t know for sure until we get into town,” Phillip interjects, helping Taylor butter a piece of toast, “but I don’t think that timeline is so unreasonable.” He does, as a matter of fact, but he operates on a principle of public loyalty. “P.T. and I will go in after breakfast and see what we can negotiate. In the meantime, take advantage of the area. It looks beautiful – and there’s a river not far from the tracks.”

“Laundry time,” one of the acrobats chirps happily. Anne and Charity share a wry smile across the table. Taylor, who is currently smearing butter on his shirt, is a true child of the circus – mud and manure are his playthings.

The boy looks up with unstudied curiosity at Barnum, who catches his eye and tips him a wink. “Papa’s tall,” Taylor murmurs with satisfaction, and goes back to the butter.

“Eat up,” the senior ringmaster says, turning to the general assembly, “and try not to get lost in the wilderness. Lord knows that’s the last thing we need.”

* * *

Anne is extremely pregnant – nine months plus almost a week, though her belly remains stubbornly petite. Her time as a slave taught her that pregnant women don’t stop working until the baby’s head crowns between their legs. But on this matter Charity reigns absolute. She’s too practical to coddle, but even so, Anne won’t be inducing labour with a laundry basket anytime soon.

“Have fun,” Charity calls to her husband, Anne’s laundry hitched high on her slim waist. Her skirts are tucked into her belt, showing the length of her worn brown work books and a hint of pale calves. Her coat is warm but utilitarian. With wisps of golden hair escaping her bun, she looks very little like a rich entrepreneur’s wife. “Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.”

Barnum is famous the world over for his finagling, no less now than when he was a poor tailor. “I won’t,” he concedes, watching as his girls disappear with Anne in the direction of the river. Taylor trails behind them, his chubby legs clumsily fighting the terrain. “Don’t let anyone try to walk into Derry,” he calls after them. “We don’t know what the town is like.”

It’s one of Barnum’s ironclad rules: he and Phillip scout out the local terrain before they let any Oddities show their faces. “I wish Anne would stay inside,” Phillip frets, slotting his left foot into the stirrup. Flick gives a neat, indignant Arabian snort as Phillip swings fluidly into the saddle. “I don’t like to think about her giving birth in the middle of the Kenduskeag.”

“She’ll be fine, she’s with Charity.” Barnum follows suit on a big roan workhorse they call Copper. The name is less a reference to his colour than to the fact that he once tipped over a copper of oatmeal and ate it while the cook screamed bloody murder. And then, “In the what now?”

“The Kenduskeag.” O’Malley sucks his lip moodily from atop a pony on Barnum’s other side. The creature looks almost as doleful as her rider – an impressive feat. “That’s what they call the river in these parts.”

“Damn strange name.” Barnum, who can be counted on to recite the name of every town on any given state map, is infuriatingly oblivious to nonhuman topography. “Big, is it?”

“Sure.” O’Malley shrugs. “And a hellcat when it rains, they say.”

Every one of them instinctively looks to the sky, which is as clear and fine as a glass of spring water. “Well,” Barnum says, digging his heels into Copper’s sides, “that’s a problem for another day. Come on, boys, let’s stretch their legs.”

Even Mint, O’Malley’s glum charge, is frisky after being cooped up in the stock cars. It doesn’t take long for a trot to roll out into a canter, and then for the canter to turn into a gallop. O’Malley thumps along like a sack of potatoes, grumbling and clutching his bowler hat as Mint chases their wake.

Barnum rides like a wild man who’s burst his fetters, no spit and polish, just sheer muscular enthusiasm. He chortles in Phillip’s face as he passes, waving impishly. But Phillip learned to ride before he could walk, and not on a trundling workhorse. He tucks in his knees and crouches forward, urging Flick on with his hands and voice. He’s pretty sure Barnum hollers something obscene as they pass, but if so, it’s lost in the gale of their laughter.

They go like that for about a quarter mile before reining the horses in – the beasts haven’t even broken a sweat. Champing at the bit, both men and horses, they go again, and this time they don’t stop until the first houses appear along the tracks.

They slow to a stroll at the town limits, no more than a few scattered houses building to a modest, sturdy climax. As they ride through town, their horses blowing and snorting, Phillip takes stock of the local mood. People stop and stare, but without animosity, at the three strangers riding in like fantastic cowboys. It’s a smallish lumber town, seemingly populated mostly by workingmen, but it likely has its share of capitalists making good on their labour. It seems out-of-the-way and quietly industrious.

Not too bad, on the whole, if first impressions are anything to go by.

Barnum inquires of a local, and they’re directed to a brick building about ten minutes away. They secure their horses at the posts and go in, leaving O’Malley to stand guard. It doesn’t seem like the kind of town where things would go missing, but they’ve been burned on that front before, and it’s only a stupid mistake if you repeat it.

“P.T. Barnum, at your service.” Barnum thrusts out a hand to the man who meets them at the counter, his showman’s smile in place. The man shakes hands cautiously. “This is my partner, Phillip Bailey.”

“A pleasure,” Phillip asserts, shaking hands in his turn.

“Theodore Rouster, Frontier Services.” The man looks them over, taking stock of them and their aura. He’s provincial, speaks with a workaday Maine drawl, but his apron and clothes are neat and clean. “What can I do for you gents? Haven’t seen you around these parts before.”

“I shouldn’t think so. We’re a travelling circus – the Barnum and Bailey.” Barnum’s voice holds unmistakable pride even after almost four years of saying it. Rouster’s eyes light up in sudden recognition. “We’ve been on tour for the past six months. I’m afraid we busted our boiler a couple of miles outside town. We’re stalled on the tracks.”

“Tricky things, those boilers.” Rouster shakes his head; his eyes say he’s seen everything twice and thinks the world a hard place for it. “I’m sorry to hear it, especially with you so close to pulling into town. The outskirts are no great place to be stalled.”

“We’ll be wanting repairs as soon as possible,” Phillip puts in. “We’re headed for Bangor. We’d hoped to be there tonight.”

“Repairs I can do, but not until tomorrow, and not in time to get you out of Derry for another five or six days. We have a backlog right now. A steamer jumped the tracks not two days ago, and we’re still trying to decide which pieces go where. Nasty business that was. Freight, not people, thank heaven, and no casualties except for one of the firemen – we put _his_ pieces in a pine box.”

“Dear God,” Phillip utters.

“That’s what happens when you fall under a moving train, young man.” Rouster fixes him with a stern look. “You might as well shake hands with a guillotine – and feet and legs, too, while you’re at it.” The man turns back to Barnum, who is pale but unsurprised. “You have many people on board?”

“Upwards of eighty. Animals as well.” Barnum clears his throat. He looks as uneasy as Phillip feels – as if a chill wind has suddenly swept under their coats. “We take care.”

“Children?”

“Nine. Ten, in a few days.”

“Yours, sir?”

“Two of them.” Barnum nudges Phillip. “But I’m not the one currently multiplying and filling the earth, am I, Phil?”

Phillip laughs, abashed and proud. “I have a little boy,” he confesses, “and the one on the way is mine.”

“They must be frightened.” Rouster looks closely at Phillip. “I would imagine, yes.”

The chill reappears with a vengeance. Phillip has a sudden vision of his unborn child crouching in Anne’s womb, huddling back against her spine. “I don’t suppose unborn babies get frightened,” he returns lightly, fighting that ripple of unease. “And Taylor is pretty used to the unexpected.”

“Just the same, since you do have little ones on board, let me give you a caution. There’s no taking care with children. They get into trouble, or they don’t. But they tend to get into trouble more in Derry. Maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s the air; maybe it’s too many blasted floods. In any case, keep an eye out for anyone in your crowd under five feet or sixteen years.”

 _Caroline is the oldest, and she’s just sixteen_. The thought hustles into Phillip’s mind, and he quickly hustles it out again. “Thanks for the warning,” he says, collecting himself. “We’ll keep it in mind.”

“You do that.” Rouster produces a form from under his desk. “I’ve kept you talking too long. Fill this out, and I’ll send a man back with you to look at the damage.”

“Appreciate that,” Barnum says, taking out his spectacles. He perches them on his nose and reads over the form, plucking a gold-tipped pen out of his breast pocket. “We were told to ask for Sid Henson. We spoke to…”

“Ol’ Blue?” Rouster nods, although Phillip catches a whiff of exasperation in his aura. “Sid’s our best, that’s for sure, and I guess I don’t mind obliging an old dog like Blue. Name suits, doesn’t it? Yes, he was our best man till his back turned him a dirty trick. Gave out – gave _up_ , you might almost say.”

“Dirty shame,” Barnum agrees, and Phillip guesses he’s seen a few old railway hands laid low before their time. “Say, Rouster, if we wanted to talk to someone about doing a few shows while we’re here, who would we see?”

They haven’t discussed that possibility, but it comes as no surprise to Phillip. “You’d go to the mayor.” Rouster pulls out a map of the town and points out the location. “I can tell you right now he won’t be opposed. We get the odd sideshow around here – not enough to satisfy, just enough to whet the appetite. A wicked appetite Derry has. We have more than our fair share of children, and we could use a distraction right now.”

“How’s that?” Barnum asks absently, busily filling out the repair form.

“We’ve had a few accidents in town lately, and the flooding’s been bad this year.” Rouster speaks evenly enough, but his eyes flick again to Phillip. “Folk need something to take their minds off their troubles.”

“That’s why we’re in business.” Barnum signs the form and slides it over to Phillip, who holds it at arm’s length – he’s left his own spectacles in the railcar, and he’s farsighted. “Thanks for your help, Mister Rouster. What say we come back in a couple of hours and pick up your man?”

“Sounds fine.” Rouster takes the form after Phillip signs it. “He’ll be ready. Welcome to Derry, sir – a pleasure to have you.”

* * *

They get back to the train sometime after noon. Sid Henson immediately goes to confer with the conductor while the Oddities eagerly gather outside. “Well, the good news is, we’re getting help,” Barnum announces, hugging a laundry-damp Charity to his side. “The bad news is, it’s probably going to take longer than we thought.”

“Not longer than I thought,” Charles says gleefully.

“Shut up, Charles,” Phillip says without hesitation. He and Charles were roommates for several months before he married Anne, and the watermark of inhibition is low. “Let the man talk.”

“The estimate at the moment is almost a week – they’re backed up with repairs right now.” Noticeably, Barnum doesn’t mention the dismembered fireman. “Phil and I talked to the mayor, and he’s more than happy to be hospitable.”

“What does that mean?” Lettie shoots back. “So far as I can tell, he doesn’t have much choice.”

“It means we’ve asked for permission to set up the show,” Phillip inserts. “We’re going to lose money sitting here, not to mention the cost of repairs. We might as well recoup some of that.”

“A show here in Derry?” Constantine asks as excitement ripples through the crowd. “Is the town big enough for that?”

“Regardless, we’re sitting here,” Barnum cuts in as several voices rise in debate, “and it doesn’t cost anything to set up. We might lose a bit in concessions, but it’s worth a shot. If nothing else, we can eat the food ourselves – right, Leeds?”

The Lord of Leeds pats his expansive belly enthusiastically, and everyone laughs, instantly loosening the tension. “And what’s the town like?” W.D. puts in, one arm protectively around Anne, and just like that the tension hikes up again. “I mean, are they the lynching type, or…?”

“I wouldn’t bring you into a lynching town.” Barnum’s voice hardens slightly. “Exactly when have I ever done that?”

“Sorry, but I gotta ask. You’re white – you don’t always know what to look for. And Annie being married to your boy there…” W.D. jerks his chin at Phillip.

Most men would bristle and put up their backs. To Barnum’s credit, he backs down. “I wouldn’t do that, not if I knew better,” he asserts. Charity silently encircles his waist with her arms. “They seem like your typical smallish town – a little slack-jawed, overworked, but willing to have fun if someone shows them how.”

“All right.” W.D. shrugs. It isn’t a lack of trust that drives his question – not in Barnum or Phillip. It goes deeper and broader than that. “Good enough for me.”

Barnum’s mouth quirks up, and mercifully, the subject passes.

* * *

“I never seen anything like it, sir.” Sid Henson is a small, agile man whose scalp is beginning to push through his hairline. His gentle face screws up perplexedly. “Look at this.”

His fingers, grimed deep with oil, trace the place where the stays came off. Barnum leans in. A low whistle escapes his lips as he lays a finger alongside a deep gash. Several other gashes mark the boiler, raising jagged metal for four or five inches. “What did that?” he murmurs.

“No idea, sir. I’d almost say it looks like claw marks, if that waren’t a sweet piece of bull.”

Phillip keeps his mouth shut. Barnum has taught him a lot about the mechanisms of the train over the past three years, but that doesn’t mean he feels competent to offer an opinion. Barnum rocks back on his heels. “Never seen the like,” he pronounces, a frown slashing his forehead. “And I’ve seen almost everything.”

“Ayuh.” Henson wipes his fingers on his trousers, where many streaks of dirt have been smeared into the worn fabric. “One of your great beasts didn’t get at it, did they?”

“Can’t imagine how. And their claws would be in pretty rough shape if they did.”

“Guess you’re right.” Henson expels a quick breath. “Not much I can do for you out here, anyway. We’ll tow you in to the trainyards – there’s a coal pit if you need to refuel. Problem is, we might have to send off to Bangor for some of the parts.”

“Well, you can’t help that,” Barnum says, but disappointment lingers in his tone.

Henson starts to get up, then hesitates. “Sir, is it true you’ll be putting on shows in town?” he asks.

“That’s the plan.” Barnum’s smile is at once the badge of the showman. “Will you come out to see us?”

“I should think so, sir. I got no one to bring but myself, but I reckon that’s enough for an overworked Derryman.”

“I’ll say.” Barnum claps him on the back. “Look for the posters in town; we’re putting on the whole nine yards.”

After he finishes in the engine, Henson pays a brief visit to his father’s porch, then rides back to town to arrange for the towing. Barnum and Phillip retire to the boxcar they use as their office. “Six days,” Phillip sighs, looking at the repair order on his desk. Across the office, Barnum creaks back in his chair. “And when a repairman says six, he means twelve. Well, I guess it could be worse.”

“It could be,” Barnum agrees. The back of his head almost touches the window behind him; outside, various Oddities can be heard joking and laughing. “We could have jumped the tracks.”

“Don’t even say it.” Phillip drops the report and rubs his eyes. He’s excited for his second child, but the strain of the wait is telling on him. It would be easier if his libido wasn’t constantly making demands he has no power to meet. “I can’t imagine.”

He feels Barnum looking at him, and suddenly he feels a wash of irritation. “What?” he almost snaps.

“Nothing.” Barnum’s smile tells a different story. “I was just thinking about the times Charity was pregnant, that’s all.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Phillip says, immediately intuiting Barnum’s aim. “Moving on…”

“I was _thinking_ ,” Barnum reflects, a hint of the devil in his eyes, “that the energy it took to keep myself in check on top of providing for a new baby…”

“P.T., stop! We are not having this conversation.”

Barnum laughs. “Listen, kid, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last. I’m not saying I’ve picked up on the tension. I’m just saying I’ve picked up on the tension.”

“Can you pick up on something else?” Phillip snips. “This isn’t the first time Anne’s been pregnant. I’ve dealt with this before.”

“True, but she barely went eight and a half months with Taylor, and you weren’t living on a train at the time. If you think that doesn’t make a difference, you’re more inexperienced than I thought.”

“So I’m green and horny,” Phillip retorts. “Shall we also talk about my appreciation for the male form, or maybe my affinity for the bottle?”

“Whatever passes the time.” Barnum spreads his hands genially. “The talk in this office stays in this office.”

Groaning, Phillip lays his head down on his desk. “Nobody tells you about this when you get married,” he says to the desktop. “Nobody.”

“You’ll get through it.” Barnum lets his chair come down on all fours. “Soon everything will be back to normal. In the meantime, walk it off, swim it off, dance it off, do what you have to do.”

Phillip raises his head. “I don’t think tight show pants are a good idea right now,” he says, but he’s smiling. “Speaking of shows, should we try for tomorrow night?”

“I don’t see why not. No sense twiddling our thumbs. Derry’s not in the schedule, so the starting show is up for grabs. Want to flip for it?”

“Sure.”

“Loser gets rounds.” Barnum produces a quarter. “Ready?”

“You know I don’t trust you in a coin toss.” Phillip holds up his hand, and Barnum arcs the coin neatly across the boxcar. “Call it,” Phillip says as he flicks it up into the air.

“Tails,” Barnum says promptly.

Phillip catches it and slaps it onto the back of his hand. “Tails,” he confirms. “Rounds are mine.”

“Turn up the ol’ Bailey charm,” Barnum says, snatching the quarter out of the air as Phillip tosses it back. His grin is the glint of sunlight on silver. “As high as it goes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my usual method of updating has been to post a chapter a week, with the newest chapter going up sometime each Monday. I'll be sticking to this method with this story. Thank you for reading and please stay tuned!
> 
> Next chapter up Monday, Sept. 21!


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the circus' first show in Derry doesn't go as planned.

**Chapter 2**

_Hey, Taylor. You want a balloon?_

Taylor looks up from his crouch, his hands buried in the dying grass. It’s so early the sun hasn’t shown its face yet, and the vegetation around the tracks is wet with dew, and the air is damp and chilly – and he and Papa are drawing the line. Daddy calls it a _perimeter,_ and Taylor is so good at it that it’s his special job. His and Papa’s. Putting down the markers. Drawing their world.

He stands. He looks at the clumsy board fence near the downslope and the red bubble floating there. He’s never seen it before, not with his eyes. But he knows what it is. He blinks, listening to Papa’s voice get further and further away. Yes, he knows exactly what it is. What he’s unsure of is that phantom voice, childish and unseen.

_Come on, Taylor, it’s just for you. A nice balloon…and all you have to do is step over that line._

He looks down at his feet, at the marker Papa has placed by his shoes. Then he looks back up at the bubble. He can’t step over the line, invisible though it is. It’s against the rules. So he just stands there, staring at the red bubble, puzzling at the voice.

Nobody else knows about his bubble. And he wouldn’t even know what to call it. All he knows is that when things go wrong a horrible feeling starts in his chest, right in the middle, and gets bigger and bigger even though Mama and Daddy say _hush_ and _it’s okay_ and _tell us what’s wrong_. The unnamable feeling is so much bigger than him and yet somehow it’s _inside_ him, and that hurts so much that sometimes he screams.

 _Use your words_ , Daddy always says in the quiet voice that Taylor loves, breeze-through-grass, just like he loves Mama’s, which sounds like the taste of honey. But there _are_ no words for it, none that he knows and none that he doesn’t, just that red bubble getting bigger and bigger inside him.

And then Papa comes through the door in the short wall and takes him up to the top of the train, where they lie under the open sky with the clouds streaming above. _Now you can match the wind_ Papa always tells him, and presses a hand firmly against his back, squeezing him like a bellows to get all the scream out. And Taylor screams like the wind until the bubble bursts.

He’s unhappy about seeing it. It looks like a circus balloon, round and shiny, but without one of those strings you hold onto so it won’t float away. And it’s floating by the bushes, by the bushes that disappear downhill toward the river they found yesterday when the train stopped.

Near the voice that comes out of the ground like the mist and the dew and the grass.

He hears Papa come back along the invisible line like an acrobat, like Taylor’s uncle Big D. “What’s wrong, Toro?” Papa asks. _Toro_ means _bull_ , and Taylor likes the sound of it even though most of the time he doesn’t feel like it fits him. _Bull should’ve been_ your _nickname, Daddy muttered to Papa once, and they both smirked into their coffees as Taylor looked between them, confused by the humour._ “What do you see, kiddo?”

Taylor points at the bubble. It’s not big, maybe the size of his fist, but it scares him, because he knows bubbles always grow. Papa squats next to him, but he doesn’t touch him, because Taylor’s not looking. “It’s red,” Taylor says simply, and waits for Papa to understand, as he always does.

“I don’t see anything red, kiddo.” Papa squints right where Taylor is pointing with a solemn finger. “What am I looking for?”

“The balloon,” Taylor says helplessly, because it’s the closest he can come to the truth.

“I don’t see any balloons, but betcha boy, we’ll have tons of them by tonight,” Papa says, and he’s cheerful just like adults who don’t know.

And then the bubble jigs up and down like it’s laughing at him, and that tight, big feeling starts inside his chest, and his throat locks up so that he wouldn’t be able to speak even if there were words to say. He crouches down again and covers his ears, because he doesn’t want to hear Papa not believing him, and squeezes his eyes shut.

And screams.

* * *

“Just a little meltdown.” Barnum rubs Taylor’s back with a broad hand, old callouses whispering over the cloth. Man and child are stretched on their bellies in the dirt, side by side. Dried tears blotch Taylor’s slack face; even in exhaustion, his tiny fists are clenched in bewildered indignation.

Phillip feels a sudden swell of love for them that flushes him with embarrassment. Quickly, he asks, “What was it this time?”

“We were having a good time. He seemed happy, you know, for him. Then he said he saw a red balloon by the bushes, and that was it.”

“That’s all? Just a balloon?”

“There wasn’t any balloon. I don’t know what he saw, but…you know how he is when he can’t explain himself.”

 _Which is most of the time,_ hangs unsaid between them.

Phillip kneels next to his prostrate son, hands balled on his thighs. Dew instantly soaks his trouser knees. The sun is peeking over the horizon, pale in the chill heavens. They were hauled into the trainyards south of town yesterday evening, just in time for them to scout the surrounding area before dark. It’s good ground, plenty of space for their tents and booths. To the north the circus is bounded by the shallow valley cradling the Kenduskeag; to the southeast is a dilapidated fence marking the beginnings of town.

“P.T., what am I doing wrong?” Phillip asks when every other possible question proves inadequate.

“Nothing,” Barnum says immediately.

“No, don’t. No father in the world does _nothing_ wrong.”

“Okay then, you worry a lot. You’re the devil. Unfit to raise children.”

“Can you answer a question sensibly?” Phillip asks, an unwilling smile breaching his frown. “No North Pole, no Antarctica, maybe just somewhere down around the Maldives…?”

“He’s a unique kid. Brilliant. Sure he doesn’t talk much, but he reads like thunder. Just wait it out. It’ll get easier.”

Nothing like a steaming cup of humbug to start the morning. Still, there’s something comforting about Barnum’s surety; there always has been. “Well, thanks for taking this one,” Phillip says, brushing a careful hand over Taylor’s slightly kinky hair. The boy has inherited Anne’s skin tone, that lovely milky tan, and deep raven locks. His cerulean eyes, however, belong to Phillip. “I’ll get him inside.”

Barnum rises to his hands and knees, stretching gingerly. A resounding _crack_ breaks the morning quiet. “Good Lord,” Phillip says, straight-faced. “Was that your back or someone getting shot?”

“Fourteen years, kid. Fourteen years and you’ll be where I am now.”

“In the dirt next to my screaming son.” Phillip exhales a tired breath. “Yes, I’m afraid of that.”

* * *

By mid-morning the excitement in the air is palpable, like flickers of lightning on the horizon. Before Phillip leaves for town proper he grabs Dog Boy Walter, who’s always fun on an outing, and Nora Hildebrandt, whose sly, tattooed beauty is a surefire draw. On impulse he taps the top of Helen’s golden head as he passes her – Caroline went last time, and the Barnum insistence on fairness is legendary.

“Rounds,” he barks, and her delighted squeal – still little-girl pitched in unguarded moments – is its own reward.

Rounds are fun. Not as fun as starting a show in a new town, but it has its own charm. They take a few hours to walk the streets, meet the people, put up posters, while Walter flips and yaps and Helen chatters excitedly to anyone who will listen.

The Kenduskeag flows widely through the centre of town, which seems to have sprung up along its banks like an overenthusiastic patch of weeds. The river flows fast, and Phillip can see how a day or two of hard rain could bring about fairly incommodious results. A local informs him proudly that Derry is in the process of constructing a concrete canal to box in the river as it journeys through downtown – an ambitious project that sounds like it should have happened fifty years ago.

“It’s the logging, y’see,” the local confides, nodding at the river where several meaty lumberjacks shout instructions at each other. “Good place for logs to fetch up, bad place for flooding. Ayuh, that canal – it’ll be the making of Derry, if it gets done.”

It’s lunchtime when children finally appear from a nearby schoolhouse and fan out into the streets. Phillip squats near a wooden bridge as several of them crowd close, drawn by his ringmaster regalia. Ignoring the low rumbling in his stomach, he takes a pack of playing cards from his breast pocket and shuffles it with gasp-inducing speed. “I have a question for you,” he says as his fingers flirt with the cards. “How many cards in a pack?”

“Fifty-two,” shouts a tall boy near the back.

“Right on.” Phillip shuffles again, this time zipping the cards forward and then backward over his palm. “But this is no ordinary pack of cards.” He wiggles his eyebrows as the kids murmur wonderingly. “This is a pack of _fifty-three._ ”

“Why would you want fifty-three cards?” the tall boy demands.

“Why do _you_ think?”

A pimply girl twists her mousy braid between her fingers, gazing at him with shy adoration. “One for luck?” she suggests.

“One for luck – I like that.” Phillip smiles at her, slipping the cards easily over and under one another. The slightly rougher backing of the ticket keeps him alerted to its whereabouts. “But that’s not why. Anyone else?”

Several chattery voices toss out guesses before he finally relents. “Only fifty-two of these are cards,” he says, flipping them from his right hand to his left in a precise, pleasing _whirr_. “One of them is a ticket. A ticket for one family to the greatest show on earth.” As eyes widen and irises sparkle, Phillip adds, “And one of you has the chance to win it.”

Ah, the fabled pack of fifty-three. The children are almost too wound up with excitement to participate in his card-trick-slash-joust, which he explains and then referees with grand aplomb. The eventual winner is a girl with grungy skirts and dirt caked permanently into the creases of her haggard face. She’s not the swiftest hand of the group but she’s clearly the poorest, and Phillip is not above a little sanctified manipulation.

“What a move,” he cries as she snatches the ticket and flips it. Her jaw drops and she stares, transfixed, at her impossible windfall. “Congratulations, miss, you’re the lucky winner!”

He sticks out his hand. After a long moment, amid the strangely harmonic groans of the losers, she turns her eyes up to Phillip’s. They are full of tears. Without a word, she flings her arms around his neck, then turns and bolts for home. The sight of her unwashed figure dims swiftly in a brief blur of emotion.

Any remaining disappointment in his crestfallen audience is swiftly erased by the consolation prizes: whimsical circus candy in every imaginable shape and colour. “Come see us tonight for more tricks,” Phillip calls as the children scatter, crowing happily over their loot. “Tell all your friends!”

“Hey, candy-ass. I saw you.”

The insult socks home brutally, and Phillip swivels to face the new voice. A little girl stands at a distance by the bridge railing. She’s not one of the card-players. Her drab rainwater dress is too short in the sleeves and too tight in the shoulders. Beneath the unusually high hem he sees scuffed black boots, reaching nearly to her knees.

With an effort, Phillip is polite. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He holds out a piece of candy, stretching a smile over his grimace. A bruise stains one of her pale cheeks, just beneath a cut that cups her swollen eye. He’s seen injuries like that all too often. “Would you like some circus candy?”

“You cheated.” The girl doesn’t move, doesn’t smile, doesn’t blink. But something glows in her eyes, hidden fire-flickers of undefinable emotion. “I saw you.”

Phillip pauses, the candy still in his outstretched fingers. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he says with a forced laugh. _She couldn’t possibly have seen me. She was nowhere near close enough._

The girl gazes at him with eyes that are shadowed and barren – like two burnt holes in a blanket, his old nanny used to say. Her features are in perpetual mourning, as if she’s never had a reason to smile. But suddenly he’s sure: those infinitesimal orange gleams in her eyes are laughter. “I’m telling my father,” she says in the slightly nasal tones of a tattletale. “He’ll get you good.”

“You’re mistaken, miss.” More than anything, Phillip is bewildered. Barnum is a master of sleight-of-hand, and a good teacher to boot. _How did she…?_ “I just…”

“He’ll get you, candy-ass.” She skips off, her gleeful rhythm strangely disjointed. _He’ll get you good, he’ll get you good_ trails after her like a fluttering ribbon.

He lets her go without another word. Exactly what would he say? _I’m sorry, I won’t do it again? Please don’t tell?_ _Don’t call me names?_ He’s not a child. And he didn’t do anything he regrets. He turns, and he’s almost too late to brace for Helen’s onrush of exuberance. “What’s all the excitement about?” he asks as she almost knocks him over, and though he joins in her girlish laughter, the other child’s face won’t leave his mind.

_I’m telling my father._

And the question tickles at the base of his mind:

_Who’s your father, miss?_

“I just saw Nora and Walter. They’re grandstanding by the drugstore.” Helen, prone to giggles – cackles, in her more mischievous moments – is bubbling over. “One guy tried to look down Nora’s dress for tattoos and she slapped him, really hard. He’s coming to _all_ the shows.” Practically sparkling – sly and innocent and luminescent, everything that fourteen should be – she grabs his hand and tugs on it gaily. “Race you!”

* * *

“How was town?” Lettie asks later as Phillip slides into the cramped dining car booth. She and Charles are at the tail end of a quick meal, the kind that becomes necessary close to a show.

“Fine.” Phillip avoids her eyes and the question, focusing on arranging the pages of setlist where they won’t edge into his late lunch. Performers hustle in and out of the railcar around them. “I think we’ll have a good turnout.”

“Any trouble?” Charles questions.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Pass the salt?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so.” Charles grins, swiping it further out of reach. “What kind of trouble we talkin’ about here, Bailey?”

“Miscalculation, Stratton.” Phillip speaks around a mouthful of food as he begins to scrawl revisions for the night’s setlist. The hectic nature of circus life has pretty much beaten the manners out of him; he’s even managed to reduce his mother’s reproving voice to somewhere around the level of a dropped pin. “The first thirty years of my life inured me to blandness. Salt is not effective leverage.”

“What if I tell Lettie what you used to do with your undies in our flat? Letts, this is golden…”

“I’d hang them out to dry in numerical order.” Phillip forks a limp piece of chicken. “Numerical, because I always marked the inside of the waistband with the year and month in which I bought them.”

“You’re ruining this,” Charles complains as Lettie splutters over her bread. “That was a prime piece of need-to-know.”

“And Lettie needed to know so I could escape your stupid blackmail.” As Phillip speaks, he scrawls a note to nix the snake juggling act. It’s a terrible misnomer for an equally terrible idea. Nala’s snakes do not need the excitement of having balls lobbed in their direction; it makes them snippy. But evidently it’s not enough to have live snakes, they have to have live snakes that juggle.

Finally abandoning the war against mutual passive-aggression, Phillip scribbles a reminder to lace Barnum’s next coffee with lemon juice.

“It was a new one, wasn’t it?” Charles’ eyes gleam with humour. If you didn’t know him, you might not see the anger churning underneath. “Creative? Funny?”

“Leave the man alone, Charles.” Lettie slides a little closer to Phillip. “Ignore him, hon, he’s a wart. Tell Lettie what they said.”

“Nice try. Leave me alone, guys, I’m trying to work.”

“Work, play, same difference.” Charles leans as far over the table as he can – which is not very far – and raps Phillip on the forehead with the salt shaker. “Come on, Swell, spill it. Or I’ll…” He upturns the shaker.

“Charles! You… _turd!_ ” Phillip grabs the shaker as Lettie brays a laugh into her beard. “Are you actually regressing into childhood, or is this your permanent state?”

“It’s a gift. Let it out, rich boy, we need it for the Collection.”

Ah, the Collection. Phillip has no idea who started it; all he knows is it was birthed sometime last year and refuses to die. The Collection a compilation of various insults they’ve received over the years, carefully aggregated and documented like some perverse form of socioeconomic research. It’s one way of coping, he supposes, though he’s fairly sure a better man would have stopped it by now.

“Come on, Bailey,” Lettie inserts, giving Phillip the look known as the Motherly Special, and of course that’s what finally does it. “Tell us and leave it outside the ring.”

“Okay, fine. You win.” Phillip slams down the shaker. “Candy-ass. Are you happy?”

It’s a good five minutes before Charles and Lettie recover their composure. Even then it’s really just Lettie snorting into her handkerchief while Charles burps up giggles. “I love it,” the younger man says, wiping his eyes as he writes down the phrase on a napkin. “Every place we go they got a different name for it.”

“I just don’t understand the logic,” Phillip complains. “It makes no sense. Never, even as a kid, did I ever have a piece of candy stuck to my pants. And if I had, what’s that got to do with…?”

“It’s the world, honey.” Lettie puts an arm around his shoulders. Her beard brushes his shoulder lightly, comfortingly. “They don’t care what they say, so long as it hurts.”

“I know,” Phillip says, thinking, _She was just a child and she said her father would get me. Who’s her father? And how did she_ see?

“Anyone who would talk like that to another human being forfeits their dignity,” Lettie is adding. “ _Their_ dignity. Not yours.”

Despite his troubled thoughts, a smile tugs at Phillip’s mouth. How many times has he repeated that exact formula to Charles or Lettie, or one of the six dozen Oddities they share their lives with? _Their dignity. Not yours._

“Whose dignity?” Lettie pushes, not content with half-measures.

“Theirs,” Phillip says obediently.

“Not…?”

“Mine.”

“Good.” Lettie’s smile is genuine and warm. “Now finish your lunch.”

“Yes, Auntie Letts.” Phillip picks up his fork and spears another piece of chicken, probably salted into immortality.

* * *

“Bailey! Drop and give me ten!”

Instantly Phillip obeys, pounding out ten rapid push-ups as performers bustle frantically around him. “Cutting it close there, Angus,” he pants as he hops to his feet. “Two more steps and I would have been safe.”

“Two steps make or break a whole performance.” The Strongman punches him twice on the shoulder, a quick one-two that leaves his upper arm singing. “Go get ‘em, Bailsie.”

Rubbing his arm gingerly, Phillip ducks into the changing area. “P.T., we need to consider revoking the push-up system,” he says as he heads for his crisp crimson costume. “It’s not working for me.”

“Got caught?” Barnum shrugs on his silk ringmaster shirt. “Gotta be sharp.”

“It’s not the push-ups, it’s the punching.” Phillip strips off his work shirt and folds it over the back of a chair. “My deltoids are numb.”

“Then the next punches won’t hurt so much.” Barnum loops his cravat around his neck and arranges it fussily in a mirror. “Admit it, your biceps are thanking you.”

“And cursing you in the same breath.” Phillip slips on his own silk number and works the pearl buttons into their holes. Barnum is fanatical about performer fitness, especially when it comes to the ringmasters. Apparently they have to _set the example_. Phillip has lost count of how many push-ups he’s done because he was caught stepping over a tent stay, or touching a lyra hoop after two o’clock, or kissing Anne beside a costume trunk, or any one of the other arbitrary tripwires he can’t possibly keep track of. “By the way, I might as well tell you: we’re not doing the snake juggling act.”

It took them a good few months after they became equal partners to hammer out the _equality_ bit. To be fair, the awkwardness was compounded by Phillip’s lingering hero-worship. “You’re the bushel to my light,” Barnum complains good-naturedly. “Those snakes are brilliant. I bet they could get a degree at Harvard.”

“Which, incidentally, joins the act on the list of things that will not be happening.” Phillip shucks off his trousers. “I’m not saying never. I’m saying not now.”

“And when the time comes, which one of us is paying their tuition?”

That’s not even worth dignifying. “And another thing,” Phillip says, ignoring Constantine as the man hurries by in a tatty pair of undershorts. “Stop trying to sneak things into the setlist.”

“I’m not sneaking, I’m just trying to keep you sharp. It was a long shot, sure, but I figured it was worth a try.”

It’ll be worth a recalculation when he puckers over his morning coffee. “Hurry it up, you two,” Lettie raps, poking her bearded face around the curtain. “The audience is sitting.”

“Oi!” Barnum throws a sock at her. “Men changing!”

“Nothin’ I haven’t seen before,” Lettie drawls. “Lord knows why Charity married it.”

“Get outta here, Letts,” Charles yells from the far corner. “This ain’t part of the show.”

“Small mercies,” she retorts. She ducks out as Barnum threatens her with another sock; her strident voice hollers back through the curtain. “Two minutes!”

Barnum plops down on a crate and tugs on one of his buffed leather boots. “And she thought she was destined to do laundry quietly in a corner,” he grumbles affectionately.

“Quietly?” Charles chortles. He stands up, straightening his General’s tunic. “How’s it look?”

Barnum kneels in front of him, tugging at the remastered uniform critically. “Looks good,” he assesses. “How’s it feel?”

“Better. The extra padding in the seat is nice.”

“Helps with the pain?”

“Yeah. ‘Course, you’re the biggest pain I got, but ain’t nothing I can do about that.”

Phillip laughs. “I wouldn’t antagonise the man who makes your costume. He could put pins in the breeches.”

“Now, Phil, I wouldn’t do that. Professional pride.” Barnum gazes warmly at his smallest performer. “You’re a trooper, Tom.”

“Yeah, yeah, give me a medal.” Charles stumps off, his uniform hat under one arm. He suffers from chronic back and leg pain, an unfortunate side effect of his condition. “Get out there or Lettie’ll throw your balls to the jugglers.”

Phillip finishes adjusting his waistcoat and reaches for his scarlet ringmaster’s jacket. It’s cut trim and snug around the waist, unlike Barnum’s, which retains its flaring knee-length tails. “How are you feeling?” he questions, shrugging the jacket on.

“Nervous.” Barnum flashes him a grin. “I even have the sweaty palms.”

They’ve both started dozens of show circuits in new towns, but the jitters never quit. “You’ll be great,” Phillip asserts. “Break a leg, as we say in the theatre biz.”

“Don’t jinx it, as we say in this one.” Barnum hitches his top hat onto his head and grabs his cane. He gives it a sharp twirl, then a reverse double-twist.

“Show-off,” Phillip says fondly as Barnum tucks the cane under his arm.

“That’s the idea.” Barnum turns to go, then stops. He flicks Phillip’s coiffed hair, sending a few dark strands curling over his brow. “Better,” he smiles. “Less starch, more you.”

“Stop that,” Phillip complains, but the humour is a relief. It’s been a busy day, and the show hasn’t even started. “Go loosen up the audience, they need it more than I do.”

“Then my work here is done.” Barnum tips his hat and strides out of the costume area, warming up his voice as he goes.

Phillip finds Anne standing at the edge of the stands, arms cupping her belly. She gazes up wistfully at the tent apex where W.D. stretches through one last warm-up. “Soon,” Phillip whispers, circling her with his arms. She leans back into him, and he plants a kiss on the side of her neck. “I know you miss it.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she whispers back.

“And I miss watching you.” Phillip kisses her again, this time on the curve of her cheekbone. “Soon,” he repeats.

“I love our children,” Anne murmurs as he nuzzles her cheek. “But maybe after this one…”

Phillip smiles against her jaw. “Agreed,” he says.

From the first note of the first song, there’s no break. Phillip soon finds himself greased with sweat from the gaslights, hair dripping, cheeks ruddy, breath coming short. Between directing backstage movement, jogging onstage for transition banter with Barnum – mostly improvised – and running interference between various acts, he has little time to soak up the performances.

“Eli, Eli.” Phillip snags her sleeve as she darts by with a pencil stuck behind each ear. “A couple of questions.”

The young woman executes a sharp about-turn that would make Barnum proud. “Yes, bossman,” she says promptly.

“How are the Bunker twins doing? Are they upright yet?”

“More or less. They finally got off the can, anyway, and Gaspar’s thrown out the rest of that pork.” Eli Filbert is Phillip’s assistant stage manager, a boyishly lean woman of snappy energy and close-cropped auburn hair. She’s the cousin of Jacqueline Tallow, their travelling tutor, which is a whole story in and of itself. Eli – formerly Eileen – prefers trousers and a waistcoat, tailored specially for her by Barnum. The crowning touch is a tweed cap slouched rakishly over one temple. “By the way, I pulled Caroline for frontline stagehand duty. Managing traffic around the animal changes. Jacks is with Helen and the kids. That okay?”

A couple of years ago, the girls begged on hands and knees to be allowed to help out with the show. A junior apprenticeship to Eli, who is apprenticed to Phillip, was ironed out, with the understanding that, for the attendant modest compensation, the girls would report along that chain of command. _They’ll listen to you in a way they won’t to me,_ Barnum reasoned when Phillip hedged, _and I won’t be tempted to protect them from every little risk._

“She can handle it.” Phillip speaks without looking up. “Just make sure she wears the tough gloves in case she needs to handle one of the leads. We’re bringing the lions out in two minutes, so make sure Helen knows to keep all the circus kids well out of the way.”

Eli produces a tiny spittoon from her waist – Barnum forbids regular cigar smoking on the grounds that it hoarsens the voice, and she’s a tobacco fanatic – and sends a neat mucous projectile through its mouth. “Got it,” she says when her mouth is clear.

“Also, remind Nala to please, please, _please_ stop singing lullabies to her snakes while the lions are walking out. Zeus is distractible and I don’t want anything taking his focus off the trainers.”

“Will do. Anything else?”

“Yes. Did a family come in with the free ticket yet? I gave it to a girl who looked like she could use some good luck.”

“Nope, I checked with O’Malley a few minutes ago and no one had brought it in.”

“All right, well, keep an eye out.” Phillip finally looks up, his eyes glazed with heat and hot with excitement. “How do I look?”

“Like a ringmaster.” Eli grins approvingly at him, eyes twinkling under the brim of her hat. “All hail the sacred reds.” She swipes his clipboard from him and shoos him away. “Go on, I got this. Wish the big man luck for me.”

Phillip finds Caroline near the edge of the ring, draped in a stunning azure dress piped with silver. Tough workman’s gloves cover her slender hands. “Congratulations on your promotion,” he whispers, straightening his cravat for the thousandth time as Barnum regales the audience. “I have every confidence in you.”

Caroline smiles, and for a moment he can almost believe that Barnum has been reborn as a female, willowy and tall, adorned with a fall of lustrous auburn hair. “Thanks, Phillip,” she says in her soothing feminine alto, pitched low to avoid attracting attention. “I love working with the animals.”

“And you like a challenge.” Phillip’s stomach churns with an unpleasant combination of excitement and nerves, but he hides it as well as he can. He can hear the lion trainers behind him now; in a few seconds he will precede them into the ring for the grand reveal. “How’s Taylor?”

“Reading, as usual. Helen has the blanket ready in case he needs to hide from the roars.”

A low growl reaches Phillip’s ears, and he bounces twice on his toes without realising it. “This is it,” he chants softly, watching Barnum, thinking again that this is insane and nothing he would ever trade. “Just one more death-defying stunt.”

A slim hand grips his, no more than a brief squeeze, there and gone. “It’ll be fine. I know you worry sometimes, but Dad will be all right. Everyone will.”

“I know.” He looks at her whiskey eyes, on a level with his now, so reminiscent of her father, and smiles. “Thanks, Caroline. Just be careful; remember, a lion is never completely tamed.”

With that, he settles his gleaming top hat on his head and enters the ring.

* * *

Barnum is regaling the audience with some kind of enthusiastic balderdash when Phillip struts casually onstage, his top hat cocked at an outrageous angle. “So, Barnum,” he calls as he loops his cane easily, ignoring the sweat trickling past his hairline, “you think you have the market cornered on thrills?”

Barnum turns, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I do, actually,” he retorts, planting his feet and cupping his hands over the head of his rattan. “Care to make our audience an offer?”

“Oh, I think I have something they’ll want to see.” Phillip props his cane on one shoulder as the curious murmuring intensifies. “Unless of course they feel they’ve had enough for one night.”

An immediate eruption of naysaying ensues. “Now, now, Bailey, you know better than to bait our good patrons,” Barnum ripostes, eyes flashing. “Why don’t you tell them what you have up your sleeve?”

Phillip juts his chin cheekily, enjoying Barnum’s veiled impatience. Every morning he questions the sanity of this venture, and every night he remembers why it was the best decision of his life. “It’s a little too big to fit up my sleeve,” he muses, tapping his shoulder with his cane. “Three guesses?”

“Hm. Well, we’ve already had jugglers.” Barnum flips his cane into the air and catches it. He tucks it behind his back and begins to stalk Phillip in a slow circle. “Juggling _snakes?_ ”

The audience laughs at this. Phillip simply smiles, because he knows exactly where to find the lemon juice. “I’m afraid not,” he says, flipping his hat into the air and catching it neatly. “Next?”

Barnum pretends to think. “I don’t suppose you have a troupe of dancing koalas back there,” he suggests hopefully.

“Nope.” Phillip lays extra emphasis on this, because it certainly won’t be the last time he hears about it.

“Hm.” Barnum pauses, cocking an eyebrow at Phillip. Phillip returns the gesture. “I know!” the man says suddenly, snapping his fingers. “Elephants on bicycles!”

Phillip makes a quick motion at his side with his hand, and on cue, the lions release a mighty roar. “Even better,” he calls, sweeping his cane dramatically at the entrance. “Ladies and gentlemen, straight from the savanna of Africa, may I present…the kings of the jungle!”

Zeus and Elroy burst into the ring, closely paired with their trainers. Phillip steps to one side, allowing Barnum and the lions plenty of room as the audience screams jubilantly. It’s not that he’s afraid of the lions, per se; he performs with them on a regular basis. But healthy respect never goes awry.

To be fair to Barnum, he puts on a magnificent act. The crowd dangles on his every word and motion, mesmerised as he effortlessly plays and stunts with the beasts. A few minutes in, Phillip chances a look at Charity, who stands with Anne in the shadows. Charity’s smooth hands are clasped between her breasts, and he knows she’s praying for her husband’s safety, the way she does every night. As if sensing his attention, Charity turns her gaze to him. Her eyes are warm with an unspoken plea. He sends her a reassuring smile he doesn’t entirely feel and turns back to Barnum.

He’s not quite sure what happens next.

One moment, Barnum’s hand rests easily on Zeus’ mane as he spins some kind of alluring nonsense; the next, Barnum jerks bodily, his head rearing back like a startled charger. Phillip hears him expel a sharp _gaahh_ , more than a gasp and not quite a cry.

Zeus’ teeth flash. In an instant, Barnum’s left hand comes away dripping and ragged. With a grunt that lands in Phillip’s gut like a punch, Barnum goes to one knee, clutching his wrist. The arena hushes on a collective gasp, except for a single wail that peters out in a thin shriek.

In the brief breath before Phillip’s feet propel him forward, the trainers act. With short, sharp commands they corral the lions away; strangely, Zeus is now completely docile, as if he has not just maimed one of his ringmasters. “Take them out,” Phillip orders instantly, cracking the command low, like a whip. “Quickly.”

He drops at Barnum’s side as the trainers follow their orders, taking the torn hand between his own. “It’s okay,” he hears himself say in the voice that used to command the respect of every backstage in New York. “Everything’s under control.”

As if to defy his assessment, the crowd breaks out in cries and exclamations of dismay. “Did it _bite_ him, Mommy?” Phillip hears one child ask, shrill and broken-hearted, and the question buries itself in his heart like an arrow. For one child at least, the circus may have been forever ruined.

“Save the show, Phillip.” The white, wounded expression on Barnum’s face is awful. He looks betrayed, brutally stripped of assurance. “That’s the important thing.”

“It’s _one_ of the important things.” Later, there will be blame – directed at Barnum from Barnum, mostly – and questions, too many pointed questions, but all that can wait. “Are your fingers intact?”

“I think so.” Barnum moves them; Phillip sees a brief flash of bleached bone across the back of his hand. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a shallow…”

“No, it’s not, but you _will_ be fine.” It’s strange that all the anxiety and nerves were nearly crippling before anything terrible happened; now that they are facing the worst, Phillip is ruled by an almost preternatural calm.

He turns and motions with one bloody hand to Lettie, who perches on the edge of the ring. Offstage performers are strictly forbidden from entering the ring without permission. But they throng the outskirts of permission, a silent but solid support.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you not to worry.” Phillip reaches for the buttons of his ringmaster’s jacket as he raises his voice in the friendliest tone he owns. “I assure you, you are perfectly safe. We’ll have this dealt with in short order.”

“No, not your jacket.” Barnum’s mouth is taut. “You’ll never get the blood out.”

Damn Barnum and his love affair with their costumes. “I don’t actually care at this moment,” Phillip returns, but he desists because Barnum is ass-stubborn and also because Lettie is pressing something soft and useable into his hand. He clasps Barnum’s hand between his and the cloth until Barnum grunts again, but he doesn’t relent. Blood is quickly dampening the material; the warmth terrifies him. Should it be cauterized? Will it infect?

“I called for Benny.” Lettie stands next to Barnum, her hand gripping his shoulder. Her bearded face is ashen. “He’s waiting backstage.”

Benny is their travelling vet, and useful in more than one circumstance. “You’re a gem, Letts.” Phillip bows his head to catch Barnum’s eye. The shame in them is writ large. _Stop that,_ he wants to yell. _You’re not supposed to look like that._ “Are you ready to walk off?” he says instead.

“Yes.” Barnum squeezes Phillip’s hands in return with a pressure that has to hurt. “I’m sorry, Phillip. This is my fault.”

“Save it. For when I have the time to tell you what bull it is.”

They stand together. “Save the show, Phillip,” Barnum whispers again, and then turns and waves with his uninjured hand. The effect is mixed; some people applaud but more look appalled, and Phillip knows they are not going to make much money tonight.

“Take him off,” Phillip says quietly to Lettie, transferring Barnum’s injured hand to hers. “And send me O’Malley, please.”

It’s a long time before the crowd is anywhere near appeased. “This is bad.” O’Malley shakes his head dolefully as the last of the discontented crowd trickles out. At this point in their acquaintance, Phillip doesn’t expect to hear anything different from him, but the man is still right. “Lotta refunds.”

“And probably not a lot of repeat customers.” Phillip settles himself on one of the stands, wiping his forehead with his wrist. His jacket hangs open, finally unbuttoned. “Poor P.T.,” he sighs. “He’s never going to forgive himself for this.”

“God love his bloody self.” There’s a generous helping of doleful affection in those words. “Rather lose his fingers than the revenue.”

“He’s thinking about the performers’ salaries.” Phillip rubs his hair out of its careful coif, an act he normally looks forward to. Tonight, it’s lost its pleasure. “He’ll take it out of his own, of course.”

“Of course. With two daughters and a wife.”

Phillip buries his chin in one palm. “We’ll have to find a way to fudge the accounts,” he mumbles against the heel of his hand. “Make it up somewhere else…without him knowing, of course.”

“In other words, you’ll take part of it out of your own share.”

“Don’t tell,” Phillip appeals.

“God love the bloody both of you,” O’Malley says lovingly. And then he adds, nodding cordially, “Anne.”

Phillip glances up, and a tired smile breaks across his face. “Hey,” he says. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

She sits next to him as O’Malley takes his leave, curling her arms around his bicep. Her mouth dimples sadly. “I saw everything. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Is P.T. okay?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks. Nothing like that time he got knifed in the arm. Benny soaked the wound in alcohol, and then he put in a couple dozen stitches.” Anne rests her head on his shoulder. “What happened, baby?” she whispers.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen P.T. react like that unless he was getting pelted with something. And you know Zeus is a little high-strung at the best of times.” Phillip kisses the soft sweep of her hair. “Taylor asleep?”

“I sure hope so. Helen’s sitting with him.” Anne presses his arm. “Let’s go home.”

Phillip spreads his arm wide. “We’re in it,” he says with an attempt at grandeur. “Almost as big as the Carlyle mansion. Not bad for a disinherited son, eh?”

“I was thinking of something a bit smaller, with a cot and a little boy.” Anne lifts her head off his shoulder. “Go see P.T., and then come home. You need to rest.”

“What I need is you.” Phillip gazes at her with frustrated longing. “This kid needs to hurry up and make her debut. She’s had more than enough time in there.”

“She?”

“Raya’s prediction.” Phillip stands and helps Anne to her feet. “I put a lot of stock in that woman’s opinion.”

“You do. Even if it’s just a crystal ball filled with glitter.”

“It seems like very wise glitter.” Phillip accepts the entwining of Anne’s fingers with his as they saunter out of the empty ring. “The way it swirls in the depths strikes me as deeply philosophic.”

Anne giggles, and he can’t stop himself from capturing a brief but impassioned kiss, nestling against her in the drowsy shadows. “I like hearing you talk,” she murmurs as he releases her lips. “At this time of night, I even like hearing you snore.”

“You poor woman. What’s the attraction, may I ask?”

Anne releases his hand. “It strikes me as deeply philosophic,” she returns, and blows him a pert kiss from a frame of curtains.

On his way to the office he passes the lion cages, where the trainers are finishing up their nightly routine. He almost doesn’t realise where he is until one of the trainers calls out to the other. Then he turns his head, and his skin ripples with a chill.

Zeus is looking at him. And in those yellow eyes he sees a clear message: _I could have done worse, and I chose not to. Not from love or respect, but just because. And maybe next time I’ll choose differently. What can you do about it? Nothing, my friend. Not if you want to play with things that have teeth._

The chill deepens, and Phillip hurries on.

When he reaches the office boxcar, Barnum’s broad back faces him. He’s changed back into a simple cotton work shirt and is struggling to manipulate the buttons one-handed. His motions slow when Phillip raps lightly on the doorframe, but he doesn’t turn.

“How’s the hand?” Phillip asks when Barnum offers nothing.

“Not bad.” Barnum shrugs and gives up on the shirt. “Stitches.”

Phillip leans against the doorjamb. “And how’s the, uh, pride?” he says after a moment.

“I hope that’s a reference to the lions,” is the tart answer.

“Oh, I think they’re fine.” Phillip studies his partner with concern. “Zeus was just doing what he was born to do. Which means that something like this was nearly inevitable, and not your fault.”

“Don’t patronize me, Phillip,” Barnum says sharply. “It’s bad, and we both know it.”

“We did have to issue a few refunds,” Phillip admits. “And we’ll have to see what attendance looks like tomorrow evening, provided the mayor still wants us doing shows. But, P.T….” He scratches ruefully at his eyebrow. “This didn’t happen in New York. It didn’t happen in Chicago. It didn’t happen in front of President Hayes and his kids. So it’s going to be okay.”

Barnum turns and slams his bandaged hand down on the desk. No trace of the ringmaster hangs about him now, about this angry man who still, somewhere deep inside, believes he’ll never be good enough. “One. Of our lions. Bit me,” he enunciates. “This has never happened before. Not in _hundreds_ of shows and rehearsals.”

“It was a matter of time,” Phillip insists, although his heart is pounding like a triphammer. He hates it when Barnum is like this. Banter is one thing, business arguments another, but Phillip has no natural defense against this raw anger, this lashing fury that fundamentally has nothing to do with him.

“Are you done with platitudes? Can we talk like a couple of men and not like some…some…” Barnum trails off, frustration and regret in his eyes. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“I thought it meant _like some milksop aristocrat_.” Phillip offers a grimacing smile. “Ouch. That doesn’t hit me in the sexuality at all.”

“You should go.” Barnum hunches his shoulders, averting his gaze. “I’m being an ass.”

“Did you send Charity away too? Because she’s the fount of your wisdom.”

“Would you prefer I rip into her too?”

“I’m pretty sure you would have to fight half the circus if you did that. Still, I’m not too worried.” Phillip buries his hands deep in his pockets, partly to hide their slight tremble. “The man who can lull my screaming enigma of a son into a peaceful slumber can keep himself from making Zeus’ mistake.”

It’s like watching a wall tumble down. “I never thought one of our lions would do that,” Barnum says, holding his head in his hands. “Should we put him down, Phillip? Get rid of him?”

“I don’t know. That’s a question for the trainers.”

“All it took was one mistake. All I did was _flinch_. Is that line so thin?”

“Yes, it is.” Phillip feels the weight of that truth settle on him. “That’s why Charity prays for you every night.”

That gets Barnum’s attention. “She prays for me when I perform?”

“Yes, you dolt.” Phillip shakes his head smilingly at Barnum’s wonder. “You don’t see her?”

Barnum crooks his head. “Sometimes the lights are still blinding.”

“You feel betrayed,” Phillip says after another pause. “That’s natural. But Zeus is an animal. It’s not personal. He doesn’t feel the same way about it that you do.” _The way_ I _do, like Innocence has just stumbled home with her eyes blackened._

“I know.”

“Then you should also know that it really is not your fault. No one’s angry. No one blames you.”

Barnum’s eyes shift briefly to him, and his smile is like a shard of glass cutting his face. “I know,” he repeats, a lie neither of them finds comforting. “Stop worrying. I’ll get over it.”

“So what happened out there?” Phillip asks when nothing else seems to suit. “Did someone throw something at you, or…?”

Unfortunately, they’ve all been pelted with choice offerings from time to time. “Nothing like that.” Barnum braces his back against his desk, tucking his injured hand against his side. Phillip can see beads of sweat still lining Barnum’s stomach through his open shirt, glistening on the dark hair of his chest and belly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“You’re pretty persuasive.”

“I saw a dead man in the audience dressed as a clown.”

“You saw what come again?”

Barnum’s eyes hold no jest, no evasion. “Not one of our performers. I would never let him out in the ring with that makeup.”

“Badly done?”

“Not if you’re trying to scare children sleepless. He was _decaying_ , Phillip.”

Phillip crosses his arms. “Tell me,” he invites quietly.

“You’d laugh.”

“Am I laughing now?”

Barnum looks at him, and the ghost of a smile touches his lips. “I guess not,” he says. “All right, here it is. Back when I was a kid working on the railroad – all of sixteen, and thin as a railway spike – I started under an Irish foreman with the worst temper I ever saw. God, that man hated my guts. I made the mistake of telling him my first name was Phineas. After that, I mainly introduced myself as P.T.”

“I assume he found an acceptable substitute.”

“Penny-ass Barnum, he used to call me. ‘Cause I didn’t have a penny to my sorry little ass.” Barnum barks a laugh. “Most of the Irish workers were good men, you know, guys you could chum with as long as you did your work right. But this one was cursed with a Manhattan-sized chip on his shoulder.”

“What did he do to you?” Phillip has learned not to underestimate the dark underbelly of Barnum’s past. “Besides give you a stupid name.”

“He had a whip and he knew how to use it. To this day I don’t know why he hated me, but he did. If the sun dawned in the sky…”

“He had a _whip?_ What kind of sadistic…”

“Easy, Phil, a lot of ‘em had whips. The Chinese workers got the brunt of it, unfortunately. But this guy would’ve walked his down the aisle and put a ring on the handle, if you know what I mean.”

“He _whipped_ you?” Phillip demands. He can’t wash the woundedness from his tone.

“He couldn’t, not really, not full blows like W.D. took as a slave. I was a street rat, but I was a born American, and this foreman was from the old country. You know the way things work.” Barnum shrugs. “Still, there are lots of ways to get in a really good lick if you’re sly. Some nights I went to bed looking like I’d been stung by a hive of wasps. It got so no other workers wanted to stand next to me in case he missed.”

Phillip flinches. “Hey, don’t look like that,” Barnum admonishes, crooking a smile. “You grew up getting your little baby arse buffed to a shine. I grew up getting mine tanned for leather. So? It was a long time ago.”

“But you were afraid tonight.”

“Sick bastard fell under a train when I was twenty-two. We had nothing worth sending back to his mother. So when I saw him tonight in the audience, yeah, I was afraid. Last time I set eyes on that face, it was lying about fifteen feet away from his body.”

“It must have been what Rouster said about the fireman who was killed,” Phillip murmurs. “It brought back bad memories.”

“Maybe. It just…it looked so much like him. It _was_ him – or it was his ghost, or something. He was standing there, _him_ , not five yards away, and he had that old whip with him – and he was smacking it against his boot to get that _thwack_ sound, just like he used to. He used to do that right before he’d lick me with it. And Lord, Phillip, he knew how to use it.”

“Okay, easy,” Phillip says as Barnum abruptly shoves his uninjured hand through his hair. “Even if it _was_ his ghost, it’s gone now. And it was probably just a trick of the lights.”

“I don’t know. It shook me.” Barnum scrubs at the tiredness around his eyes that the audience never gets to see. “Maybe it was the lights or the adrenaline, I don’t know. But suddenly this thing was grinning at me, and…you know what, Phillip? Some of the kids saw it too.”

“Were they scared?”

“Of course they were. A couple of them were crying.”

“I talked to a lot of people after the show,” Phillip says cautiously. “No one mentioned a clown – or a dead man, for that matter.”

“Probably because a lion was trying to bite my hand off at the time.”

“If Zeus had wanted your hand, he would have taken it.” Phillip has to stifle a wave of anger at his next thought. He knows the likely explanation for the mishap, and the callous disregard for their safety is infuriating. “Ten to one it was a prankster. You know how they are.”

“Damn good costume, in that case.”

“All it takes is a mean streak and nothing better to do. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Phillip spouts this maxim this before he can remember that he’s not his father and he earns his living making people laugh.

But Barnum is smiling. “More platitudes?” he teases gently, repentance in his eyes. “I really thought I drilled those out of you years ago.”

“I’m almost as stubborn as you are.” Phillip nods at the door. “Are you ready to stop self-flagellating and go to bed? Because I am.”

“We need to go see the mayor first thing tomorrow morning. Word gets around in a small town, and we have some heavy damage control ahead of us.”

“I was thinking the same thing. We can leverage the dead clown against him if he gets snippy. In the meantime,” Phillip pushes, “let’s get some rest. Okay?”

He turns to go, but Barnum catches him with a hand on the back of his neck. “Hey, you’re a good kid,” he says as Phillip turns back in surprise. His odd sincerity is worn strangely over the woundedness. “Thanks for the save tonight. I needed it.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Phillip protests, squirming a little under Barnum’s intensity. The man can never be anything _but_ intense; that’s what makes this so awful. What was safe is now dangerous. What was welcomed with a child’s glibness is now viewed with an adult’s wariness. Or is it the adult that is glib, and the child that understands the danger?

“You got between me and a lion, and then you got between me and a crowd. Just a little something.” Barnum winks, and something tight in Phillip’s chest uncoils and releases.

“All right, that’s enough.” Phillip twists away from Barnum’s warm hand, trying not to grin. “We need to get you a puppy.”

“Nothing else with teeth, thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who have read and left comments/kudos! You are my light and inspiration.
> 
> Next chapter up Monday Sept. 28!


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Phillip does at least two stupid things.

**Chapter 3**

Phillip wakes swathed in darkness, shivering despite the three blankets layered on the bed. The wind has risen in the night, moaning at the door like an abandoned lover. He sits up, careful not to jostle Anne, and squints at the curtained window. What time is it?

His pocket-watch is a dull gleam in the darkness, occupying its usual place on the narrow shelf next to the bed. One day, a watch will be invented that doesn’t need to be wound every morning; maybe – it seems like a fantasy, but that’s the life he leads – they’ll even invent one with a special build-in light, so the hands can be read in the dark.

He almost laughs. He should mention the idea to Barnum, see if anything interesting comes of it.

He swings his legs reluctantly over the side of the bed, flinching at the cold floorboards on his bare soles. The train creaks as a forceful gust hits it broadside. At times like this, Phillip is reminded of how ungrounded their segmented world is. He reaches for his robe and swathes it tightly around himself, shuddering at the chill. He tucks the blankets against Anne’s exposed back and then goes to the window.

The night is black as tar. Normally he’s a deep sleeper, roused by only the most insistent of intrusions. But he’s wide awake now, as awake as a night owl. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that eerie, quarter-after-four feeling creeping over him. Was he woken by a bad dream? He can’t remember for sure, but he has the sense that he’s just emerged from a dreamworld painted in shades of crimson and black, a world in which everything is upside-down and front-backwards and as murkily unsettled as silt billowing up from a river bed.

A noise comes to him from outside. It’s stealthy and brief, a faint crunch like feet on gravel, but it’s enough to jerk him out of his ruminations. He crosses to the door and waits at the latch, breath held, but he hears nothing else, just the wind’s heartsick moan. He quickly puts on his boots, then braces himself and slides the door open.

They keep every door and hinge oiled to perfection, and the door emits only the lowest of rumbles, the half-hearted growl of a drowsy dog. He hops down and softly slides the door shut, making sure to latch it, then takes stock of his surroundings.

The world has gone wild while they slept. Chaotic darkness smothers the land, sealed by scudding clouds that obscure the stars. The moon is nowhere to be seen. The solid mass of trees shielding the Kenduskeag, the first branches a good two or three hundred yards away, toss along the top of their obsidian silhouette like drowning hands. The temperature has plummeted to near freezing; the musty smell of vegetative death sours the breeze.

Clasping his body with his arms, Phillip is just about to go back inside when a flicker of light catches his eye from three cars down. Ducking lower against the wind, Phillip heads toward it, wondering if perhaps Barnum is having one of his sleepless nights. The light shines in the office boxcar, but it’s a mere glimmer, the product of a single candle. He sees no movement in the window.

He stops outside the door, shivering now from head to toe. His hair blows madly around his temples. The light in the office neither grows nor disappears, and after a good minute of frozen indecisiveness, Phillip reaches out and grasps the latch, digging out his keys to attack the heavy lock.

He has no real reason to be afraid. He’s often come into the office first thing in the morning to find Barnum there, already two or three hours of work into the day, the room warmed to the corners by body and fire. His friend’s sleep has become broken over the past couple of years; Phillip blames it on a heavy, unpredictable schedule. This is mostly because he doesn’t want to acknowledge the stronger implications of his partner approaching fifty – an overworked fifty. Those who have lived hard lives, especially those who’ve seen the gutter in childhood, tend to also live _short_ lives. That myth about the lower class being sturdy is true only insofar as it concerns manual labour; as far as it concerns lifespan, it really is just a myth.

 _Easy come, easy go,_ he thinks bitterly, and slides open the door.

The candle flame wavers but doesn’t go out. Ominous shadows hover in every corner, set dancing by the windblown spark. “P.T.?” Phillip croaks, unaware until that moment of how dry his throat is. “You in here?”

No answer comes, because no one is there to give it. The office is empty – it’s not big enough to hide in, and the desks have no backings to conceal stowaways – but every hair on Phillip’s body stands sharply at attention. He is alone here and the darkness, the wind, that howling sense of isolation all confirm it.

Phillip steps up, sliding the door shut behind him, and tries to cuddle warmth back into his body.

At first he sees nothing amiss. All their papers and books and ledgers are in place, everything just as they left it, right down to Phillip’s chair neatly tucked in and Barnum’s left askew. He cups his hands over the flame, willing warmth back into his fingers, then picks up the taper and makes a slow journey around the office. A closer inspection confirms his first impression: if Barnum _was_ in here, he did little more than light the candle and leave.

Perhaps he means to come right back. In fact, the opening and closing doors might have been what woke Phillip in the first place. Still, Phillip will give him three kinds of hell for leaving an open flame unguarded. There’s a lot of iron in the makeup of the train, but there’s also a lot of wood, and the thought of the original circus burning to the ground is never far from his thoughts.

 _And shouldn’t have been far from Barnum’s, either_. The thought is uneasy, unsettled like his fading dream. _He was the one who almost died carrying you out of it, remember?_

Phillip passes the candle over the windowsill, sending shadows skipping away like pixies, and that’s when he sees it.

A drying smear, crimson darkening to russet, partially obscures the gold-shot silhouette of a ringmaster on a small playing-card. It’s clearly one of their free tickets, one corner bent and soiled from possessive fingers. _It’s Your Lucky Day!_ the cursive text proclaims. _This Ticket Entitles You and Your Whole Family to One Night of the Greatest Show on Earth!_

The ticket perches between two fingers of the Hands, which occupy their customary place on the windowsill behind Barnum’s desk. If anything in the circus sparks Phillip’s revulsion – and nothing does, as a rule – it is this. Life-sized and intricately detailed, the Hands are a gift from an eccentric old Philadelphian investor by the name of Lou Atterton. He drinks whiskey like water and buys out half their seats every night they show in the city, distributing the tickets _pro bono_ to random strangers. In June, on their last night in Philly, Atterton surprised them with the clay Hands, which he’d commissioned as a thank-you gift for “keeping an old fart on his toes” – an oddly disjointed image.

As art, Phillip can admit they’re stunning. The detail is disquietingly lifelike, modelled (so Atterton claims) on Barnum’s hands – “the most inspiring grip I’ve ever had the pleasure of returning.” The Hands rest on a base on the stubs of their wrists, framed by the crisp hems of a ringmaster’s coat sleeves. Within the arches of the curled fingers rests a jaunty cane.

If Barnum knew the source of Phillip’s antipathy, he’d toss the Hands under the train and fire up the engine. Phillip knows this deep in his gut, where the best and solidest of human intuition is born. So he keeps his mouth shut, because Barnum is almost as attached to the Hands as to his own pair.

His earlier haste forgotten, Phillip approaches with slow steps. The Hands are ash-white; the dim candlelight fails to warm the bleached _faux_ skin and cloth. They look cold, as cold as death. _Death Hands_ , he thinks suddenly, and releases a strained giggle. He doesn’t need more unsettling thoughts about this particular _objet d’art._

He plucks the ticket from between the blanched knuckles and holds it up to the light. It’s identical to the one he handed out yesterday. _Is_ the one he handed out, a little voice insists; he can see the unique number in one corner that identifies each card for their inventory. He handed out #274, and here it is. But that doesn’t make any sense. No sense at all. Unless – considering the ochre stains – it makes sense but is just too awful to think about.

That’s not blood. It can’t be.

_We’ve had a few accidents in town lately…_

Even if it is blood – from a fall on the pavement, a badly skinned palm, let’s say – how would it get back here without its owner?

_I’m telling my father…He’ll get you good…_

His gaze slides back to the Hands. Half against his will, he reaches out and touches a spot of red on one of the knuckles. For a moment, a moment that is too long and surreal, the clay feels oddly warm and pliant, as if it is real flesh and bone and not merely a good facsimile. He jerks back, staring at the Hands posing so gaily on the sill, as if ready at any moment to break into disembodied song-and-dance. “No,” he says aloud. “I didn’t feel that.”

After a long procession of seconds, in which his heart beats a frantic tattoo against his ribs, he forces himself to touch the knuckle again, a quick dart of his finger as his mouth screws itself into a wincing moue.

Cold. As death.

The boxcar door rumbles back on its track.

Phillip utters a hoarse curse and stumbles back, tangling in Barnum’s chair. He cracks his elbow on the floor and curls around himself, flinching from the shadow in the doorway. “Thank God it’s you,” he mumbles into his arm as the intruder steps in.

“Were you expecting someone else?” Charity’s golden hair tumbles down her back, unobscured by pins; fine threads of silver wind their way through her locks like delicate rivers enclosed by banks of sunlight. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Phillip pushes himself to a sitting position, looking ruefully up at her. “I did this to P.T. once. Made me laugh. Now I feel bad.”

“Well, I’m sorry; normally it’s Phineas who burns the midnight oil, or lights it after midnight’s come and gone.” Charity’s light eyes are vague, distant, as if part of her has been swept away by the whistling wind. “What an awful night this is.”

“Yes.” Phillip thinks about the ticket in his hand. “Yes, it is.”

“What are you doing up?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t P.T. awake?”

“He’s out like a light.”

They look at each other across the office, silent and still. It seems odd that the two of them, the ones in their marriages most likely to sleep through a disturbance, are awake and alert while their spouses sleep. “The candle was lit when I got here,” Phillip says finally. “And the door was still locked. I thought it was P.T.”

“He hasn’t left the bed since he turned in after the show. I should know, I’ve been tossing and turning all night.” Charity frowns at the ticket in his hand. “What’s that?”

Suddenly a keen awareness of their situation, of their vulnerability and the wind whipping by just outside the open door, grips Phillip. He jumps to his feet and grabs Charity, pushing her back toward the wall. With one hand he hauls the door forward, slamming it into its frame without remorse for those sleeping around them. “Shh,” he urges as Charity stares at him. “Listen.”

He hears nothing in the ensuing march of seconds, but that subtle crunch outside his boxcar won’t leave his mind – that, and the flickering candle Barnum didn’t light. “An intruder,” he says after a minute, releasing Charity with an apologetic look. “It’s the only explanation. This is the free ticket I gave out yesterday to that girl, the one that didn’t show up. And now it’s here. With blood on it.”

He hands it to Charity, who studies it. “An intruder,” she echoes, her face pale and drawn in the shadows. “And we waltzed right out here like two kids in their own backyard.”

“You know what’s funny? Anne or P.T. wouldn’t have been that stupid. It’s just us.”

They look at each other again, and suddenly burst into laughter. It’s a good sound, coming in the wake of their fear. “We have to report this immediately,” Phillip says, recovering. “This could be serious. What if that little girl…”

“You’ll have to wait until morning,” Charity reminds him. “No one will be up at this hour. It’s not New York.” She looks around and gives a little shiver. “Let’s go back. I feel creepy just being here.”

Phillip sees her back to her railcar, waiting until he hears the door latch from the inside to leave. But he doesn’t go back to bed. He retrieves some work from his desk and sits alone in the dining car, scribbling industriously until dawn.

* * *

It’s the sense of another’s presence more than the creeping light in the sky that rouses Phillip from his fugue. He lifts his pen from the page as a shadow falls across him. “Hey,” he says wearily.

“Hey.” Barnum taps the book in Phillip’s hand. “What’s that?”

“It’s the newest children’s book by Lewis Carroll.” Phillip holds it up. “Well, it came out six years ago, but I didn’t have a kid then.”

The spine reads, _Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_. “Lewis Carroll, huh?” Barnum takes the book and inspects the cover. It’s crimson cloth board, embossed with the gilt image of a queen. He cracks it open. It falls open to the black-and-white illustration of a young girl kneeling on a fireplace mantle, hands pressed to a mirror. “Isn’t he English?”

“Yes, and evidently strange.”

“How so?”

“He only makes friends with children, or so they say. Supposedly he stutters, too, but who knows.” Phillip holds up a much thinner book, held open with one elbow. The producer of his plays, a man named Wayne, got him into doing occasional book reviews for a prominent New York literary society. The past few months it’s been all Carroll. “I guess this is really his most recent book. Came out this year. A friend from England sent me a copy; it’s the one Taylor’s been reading nonstop for the past two weeks. The only time I can get at it is when he’s asleep.”

“ _The Hunting of the Snark_ ,” Barnum reads from the spine. “And what, for love, is this supposed to be?”

“It’s nonsense poetry. Quite amusing when you get the hang of it.”

Barnum chuckles. “Carroll sounds like a man I could get along with,” he says, opening the book. His brow crinkles as he reads aloud:

_But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,_

_If your Snark be a Boojum! For then_

_You will softly and suddenly vanish away_

_And never be met with again._

Thoughtful silence falls. “What’s a Boojum?” Barnum asks at length.

“A very dangerous kind of Snark.”

“What’s a Snark?”

Phillip crooks a smile.

“Right,” Barnum says, handing over the book. “Nonsense.”

“I thought it might give Taylor nightmares, especially considering how the poem ends, but so far he’s been fine.” Phillip rubs his eyes. “I should warn you, though, he’s been trying to draw a Snark for days. If he gets any more frustrated, he’s going to come begging for you to do it.”

“That’s no hardship. And how are your reviews going?”

Phillip smiles again; he knows Barnum has little interest in literary ambitions. His interest in _Phillip’s_ literary ambitions, however, remains undeterred. “Fine,” he says. “I enjoy it. Not that I needed one more thing to do.”

Barnum shoves his hands into his pockets. “Charity told me what you found last night,” he segues after a moment.

“Yes, your wife and I now sneak around together at four in the morning solving mysteries. It’s great.”

“Not actually very pleased. You two could have been in trouble if the intruder had still been around.”

“It was stupid and I repent. Listen, P.T., we have to report this. That little girl might have been hurt.”

“I’m ready to go if you are. You look like you’ve drunk enough coffee to be civil.”

“Barely.” Phillip stands. “Let me put this where Taylor can find it and then we can go.”

The morning is cold and overcast, stirred by the whipping wind. They trot into town proper side-by-side, hunched over their mounts’ necks. Derry has already woken, bleary-eyed and grudging. When they tie up their horses at the mayor’s office, they can already see movement behind the polished windows.

“We’re here to see Mayor Gadding.” Barnum doffs his hat as the secretary looks up from her work. “It’s important.”

“He just got in, sirs.” She looks tired. “He normally doesn’t see people until…”

“It’s about a child,” Phillip inserts, overrunning her objection. “We’re afraid she might have been hurt.”

Instantly all colour runs out of the woman’s face. “I’ll tell him,” she says, jumping to her feet. “Wait here, please.”

A few seconds later, they are escorted into the mayor’s office. It’s humble but dignified, the furnishings fashioned of wood no doubt harvested by Derry’s own lumberjacks. “Please, gentlemen, have a seat,” Gadding says, motioning to the chairs in front of his desk. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

Gadding is a tall, thin man with round spectacles perched on the end of his nose. His graying hair is combed over to one side, exposing the sharp angles of his large ears. Normally Barnum is the one who charms prospective patrons on sight, but yesterday Phillip beat him to it, engaging Gadding on the respectable array of law books crammed into the bookshelves against one wall.

“It’s very serious.” Phillip takes the lead again, employing his gravest blueblood tones. Gadding, he’s discovered, is the sort of man who appreciates class. “We were actually planning to come talk to you about an incident that happened last night during our show. I’m sure you heard…”

“My wife was there.” Gadding leans back in his chair, shaking his head sadly. “A poor spectacle.”

“Yes, we’re very sorry. Purely a mistake on our part; it’s never happened before, I assure you, and we don’t intend that it will happen again.” Phillip pulls the bloody ticket out of his pocket. “This, however, has taken precedence. We found this in our office last night; apparently we had an intruder. It’s a free ticket I handed out yesterday to a little girl in town. She never showed up. We’re wondering…”

Gadding’s face goes as white as his secretary’s. He leans forward, pushing his spectacles further up his nose with a thin finger. “A little girl, you say? About ten years old, poor-looking?”

“Yes!” Phillip’s heart plunges into his stomach. “Has something happened?”

“She’s missing. Never showed up for lunch at home or for her afternoon classes.” Gadding blinks at the ticket, then withdraws again with a flinch. “Tessa Gainer. Her father Rudy is a lumberjack. Half out of his mind with worry, what with all the other children missing or killed.”

Gadding pushes himself out of his chair and strides to the door on lanky legs. “Betty, send for the constable,” he calls out the door. “Tell him we have a lead on the Gainer girl.”

“Wait, _all the other children?_ ” Barnum cranes his body to follow Gadding’s movements; Phillip sits frozen in his chair. “Exactly what does that mean?”

“Derry has had a bad year, gentlemen. A very bad year. We found the first little body thirteen months ago, in September of ’76. Since then ten other children have been killed, and dozens more missing…” Gadding stops as Betty says something back, his head cocked nervously. “Yes, all right, fine.”

Phillip meets Barnum’s eyes as Gadding comes back to his chair, rubbing his long hands together. “Eleven children dead,” Phillip echoes finally, turning to the distraught mayor. “In a year.”

“Some of them were torn apart. We think it might be an animal gone mean. God willing it isn’t anything worst. I would hate to think that a madman might be…”

“And you didn’t tell us this?” A muscle bunches in Barnum’s jaw. “Yesterday, we were in here for over an hour talking about our show, our train, our people…our _children_. And you didn’t _tell_ us?”

“I didn’t think it would do any good.” Gadding takes off his spectacles and rubs his eyes; his brows are canted in distress. “I thought it might frighten you away.”

“We couldn’t have gone anywhere!” Barnum half-shouts, and Phillip lays a restraining hand on his arm. Antagonising the mayor of Derry will do nothing for their situation. “We’re literally stalled here. You couldn’t have given us a simple warning to protect our children?”

“It was wrong of me.” Gadding’s pale blue eyes gaze between them at nothing; without his spectacles, the furrows around his eyes seem deeper. “But we needed your show. You see, people are so afraid…some of them have left, and our town is already so small…”

“You thought we could distract them from their fear.” Phillip’s blood runs alternately hot and cold. “Politically astute.”

“It would have been a great help.” With a sigh, Gadding begins to clean his spectacles with the corner of his shirt. “But it seems even a circus can’t escape Derry’s curse.”

Phillip looks down at Barnum’s injured hand, swollen and swathed in bandages.

Outside the office, a door bangs and heavy footsteps thud through the outer office. Betty cries out. Phillip turns in time to see the doorway obliterated by a man-mountain: a massive form in a dirty checked shirt, face pale and strained and tight with hurt.

“Which one of you circus fags,” is his opening line, “got my little girl killed?”

* * *

Phillip, bless his heart, has a self-destructive streak running a mile wide and a wit like a guillotine blade. The nightmare in the doorway has no sooner gotten off his vexing question than Phillip says, in a tone of broadsided disbelief, “I’m the only fag here, so I guess that would be me.”

Barnum reacts instantly. As the lumberjack lowers his head to charge, Barnum rises and lifts his chair in one smooth motion, smashing it against his chest.

The chair snaps into driftwood. The lumberjack staggers a step back, looking with disbelief at Barnum, then shoves him. The simple act is devastating. Barnum prides himself on being broad and tough, but this bastard has thirty or forty pounds on him, and he cracks his back painfully against the mayor’s desk as he stumbles.

Phillip has risen and backed against the wall. His hands are balled valiantly into fists at the level of his eyes. Barnum has spent many an afternoon trying to teach Phillip that he is not an incarnated doormat – getting that lesson into Phillip’s head is like trying to jam a cat into a barrel of water – and today it looks like it just might get the kid killed. From sheer desperation, Barnum makes a suicidal dive at the lumberjack’s slab of a side as the man storms his shorter partner.

Barnum is rather proud that, despite bouncing off like a rubber ball, he also manages to throw the lumberjack off his stride. “I’m not fifty yet,” he growls, and plants himself staunchly in front of Phillip. His bad hand finds the younger man’s arm and presses him back. _Stay._

For a moment, all that can be heard are the sounds of heavy men breathing. “Get out of the way, man.” Rudy Gainer speaks in a voice like low thunder. His eyes are black and brutal in his jagged face. “I’ve got a family to protect.”

Barnum’s hand doesn’t leave Phillip’s arm. “So have I,” he says.

Gainer pauses, and a sliver of respect edges into his lifeless eyes. “I could snap you with one hand,” he says.

“Yes,” Barnum agrees.

“I could snap him with one _finger_.”

“Yes.”

Like a performer who’s utterly missed his cue, the constable bursts into the office as they stand there in silence, eyes and horns locked. “Rudy,” the man groans, “you didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up Monday Oct. 5!


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Caroline receives some bad news and the circus is invited to a very strange house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies that this chapter is up a little later in the day; I have had a very busy week. Enjoy!

**Chapter 4**

"I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Before Phillip can second-guess his decision, he steps around Barnum and extends a hand to Rudy Gainer. “My name is Phillip Bailey, co-owner of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. I was the one who gave your daughter the ticket.”

Gainer looks down at Phillip’s hand – the nails are neatly trimmed, but the palm is marked with subtle callouses – and then up at his face. “I ain’t shaking your hand,” he says. “You gave my Tessa a ticket that might as well be made of gold for what it’s worth in this town. That’s why she’s gone. ‘Cause someone took after her. And a little girl who doesn’t come home on time in Derry in the Year of our Lord 1877 ain’t likely to ever come home.”

“I understand,” Phillip says softly, lowering his hand. “I have a little boy, and I would feel the same way.”

“I hope he burns in hell,” Gainer says flatly, and turns away to stare out the window.

After a long moment of silence, Barnum turns to Gadding. “We’re not doing any more shows,” he says bluntly. “Last night I almost lost my hand because of some prankster in the audience, and now this. It’s too much liability.”

“Please, sir, reconsider. We need…”

“No. We’re done.” Barnum looks angrily at Gainer’s vista of a back. “And I don’t want to hear you threatening any of my people anymore. We tried to do a good deed. We couldn’t have known how it would turn out.”

“Keep your boy out of town, that’s all I’m sayin’.” Gainer’s shoulders hunch around his ears. “If you don’t, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Barnum looks at the constable. When the man simply shuffles his feet, Barnum tugs Phillip toward the door. “If you have any other fascinating titbits of information, Mayor,” he drawls, “you know where to find us.”

They’re outside, unhitching their horses, when the front door swings open. “Wait,” the red-bearded constable calls, hurrying down the steps. “Don’t leave yet.”

Barnum and Phillip look at each other. “It was our ticket that got Tessa Gainer in trouble.” Phillip takes his foot out of the stirrup. “If we can help, we should.”

The constable stops a few feet away, running the brim of his hat through his fingers. “Fletcher,” he says to them. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Barnum.” Barnum hooks a thumb at himself, then nods at Phillip. “That’s my partner Bailey.”

Fletcher shuffles his feet again. “A terrible thing, what happened to the Gainer girl,” he says. “Been happening too often lately.”

“I’ve never heard the like.” Phillip smooths his hand against Flick’s neck; the motion is soothing for both of them. “Eleven children dead and more missing. Don’t you have any idea what’s causing it?”

“Sure, I got ideas. But I got no way of stopping it.” Fletcher looks unhappily at them. “It’s a lumber town, gentlemen. Folk here live rough lives. And sometimes things happen out in the middle of nowhere that don’t happen anywhere else. Can’t say why they should, but they do.”

“Whatever else it is, it’s not an animal doing all this.” Phillip keeps his voice as reasonable as his frustration will allow. “An animal couldn’t have broken into our office, planted the ticket, and then locked everything up again.”

“And could a man, without a key?” Fletcher barks a hard laugh. “When this story gets around, everybody in town’s going to think you’re a bunch of child-stealing Gypsies. Now I know you ain’t been anywhere near our town over the past year,” he cuts in over their objections. “But logic makes mighty little difference to grieving parents.”

“There’s something very strange about this,” Phillip insists. He keeps his voice low; he’s well aware of keen small-town ears. “Gainer thinks Tessa was attacked for the free ticket. But that doesn’t make any sense, because it was returned to us last night. Clearly whoever it was didn’t plan on redeeming it for a free show.”

“Bailey, what you’re saying makes the case even worse for you. Folk could say that you took the ticket back so you wouldn’t have to give something for free.”

“A lot of effort for what amounts to a pittance,” Phillip argues.

“We’re not talking about dollars and cents, we’re talking about trust. No one here trusts you. After the year we’ve have, most don’t trust their own shadows. Reminds me of a stretch we had when I was a little boy…oh, twenty-five or so years ago.” Fletcher sighs. “You really better stay out of town, because Rudy’s not one to mess with. He’s as big as a barge, for one thing, and he’s mean to boot.”

“And we can’t thank you enough for your offers of protection,” Barnum throws in disgustedly.

“Now look here.” Fletcher’s grave face hardens a little. “For all I know, you _are_ kidnappers. Tessa could be locked up in one of your boxcars gettin’ her face scarred with acid or God knows what else to turn her into a little freak. I have to say, gentlemen, I somewhat doubt it, but that don’t amount to a hill of beans if I’m wrong. The best advice I can give you is this: you keep to yourselves and pray your engine gets fixed real soon, and then get the blue hell out of here.”

“There was a girl by the bridge,” Phillip throws out as Fletcher turns away. “Yesterday, when I gave out the ticket. She was about Tessa’s age, but she wasn’t part of the group. She…she said she saw me help Tessa win the ticket, and that she would tell her father. And her father would get me.”

“What’d this girl look like?” Fletcher asks, stopping and looking back. His expression is alert, too alert.

“She was about Tessa’s age, maybe slightly younger, with dark hair. She looked sad. Her clothes were of an expensive make but too small, and…” Phillip stops at the look on Fletcher’s face. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Fletcher waves it off, but his expression is troubled. “It’s not important. Forget about it.”

“Forget about what? About the girl? What if she’s…”

“Young man, you’re a circus owner, not a detective. Leave the law-keeping to me.” Fletcher steps back; anything that was open in him is now closed. “Surely you’re not going to take a little girl’s threat seriously.”

“I’m not inclined to,” Phillip says, bewildered by the constable’s reaction. “I just thought, since it happened around the same time as the disappearance, that…”

“I told you to forget it, and that’s what I expect you’ll do.” Fletcher fixes them both with a grim look. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve been spreading upsetting stories around town. We got enough problems without that. You hear me?”

“Ah…”

“You _hear_ me, boy?”

Taken aback, Phillip can only make a noise of assent. Without another word, Fletcher turns and storms back inside, leaving them perplexed on the front steps.

* * *

Morning lessons are a treasured time for Caroline. She walks softly around the boxcar schoolroom, looking over the shoulders of the circus kids as Jacqueline Tallow – Jacks to her students, at Eli’s instigation – teaches. This is Caroline’s job when she completes her own studies for the morning. She passes over Helen, who can’t stand having her older sister help her in public, and murmurs encouragement to one of the girls.

In the next car over, Phillip is tutoring a few of the performers, Anne and W.D. among them. W.D. in particular, with his love of books, has shown himself to be something close to a genius. Phillip is currently teaching him Greek and Latin, of all things. Caroline takes most of her own lessons from Phillip these days; Jacks is a gifted teacher but trained mostly for younger children, and Caroline adores Phillip’s patient, good-humoured instruction.

Caroline leans over Taylor as the little boy colours assiduously. “What’s that?” she whispers as Jacks continues to expound long division to her other students.

Taylor looks up at her briefly with cerulean eyes as wide and star-studded as a night sky. “A Snark,” he whispers back.

Caroline cocks her head. What Taylor has drawn appears to be nothing more or less than a red balloon floating near a fence. “Is that what a Snark looks like?” she asks, touching the balloon. She’s read _The Hunting of the Snark_ , if only to have some reference point when interacting with Taylor. It’s a children’s poem, but she privately finds it fascinating.

“No. It’s hiding behind the balloon.” Taylor picks up a green crayon and scribbles some rudimentary grass. Unlike his precocious reading and writing skills, his talent for art is nothing remarkable. “I can’t see it.”

“What do you think it looks like?”

Taylor is silent for several seconds. He’s so much like Phillip, quiet and studious and thoughtful, that Caroline has to resist the urge to hug him. Then, “It smiles,” he says, picking up a black crayon. With surgeon-like focus, he draws a wide scraggly grin on the balloon that covers nearly its entire surface. “Like that.”

Caroline looks at the smile. She thinks that if something grinned at her like that, she would turn and run the other way.

A knock on the door interrupts them. The boxcar door slides open and her father steps in, casting Jacks an apologetic look. “I need a word,” he says quietly.

Jacks gives him a look Caroline has become familiar with. There’s little love lost between Jacks Tallow and P.T. Barnum, for all that they are civil in company. Jacks has no patience for grandstanding and resents being indebted to it; Barnum, for his part, is always bewildered when his charm fails to land.

“Children, your attention please.” Jacks steps aside, clasping her thin hands at her waist.

Barnum steps to the front of the car, his face unusually grave. The children are used to his scampering, rambunctious joy, and at his serious expression every little face falls.

“Please don’t be frightened by what I’m about to tell you.” Barnum leans back against Jacks’ desk, hat at rest against one of his thighs. He looks tired, and Caroline aches for him. “But do take it seriously. We found out this morning that a number of children have gone missing in Derry over the past few months. Some have even been killed. I wish I didn’t have to tell you that, but I would rather tell you something disturbing than have you hurt.”

He catches Caroline’s eye briefly, and she tries not to show her consternation at his news. Not much is kept from the circus kids, who have seen just about everything twice. It’s not hard to explain the concept of _stranger danger_ to children who face protesters on a daily basis.

He goes on, “We’re going to do everything we can to get our engine fixed and get out of here as soon as possible. In the meantime, we have to make sure you’re safe. Every one of you – that includes you, Caroline and Helen – will have at least one adult with you at all times. Play in groups whenever possible. If you see anyone strange lurking around, tell an adult immediately. Don’t go out of sight of the train without express permission. I know this is all going to be hard for you, but I need your promise that you’ll do as I say.”

He never needs to ask twice. Nine heads nod deeply and solemnly. “I’m sure every one of you will do just as Mister Barnum says,” Jacks says, pale but unfailingly didactic. “I expect that when you leave the schoolroom today, you will leave in the company of an adult.”

“I’ve assigned Eli and W.D. to watch them for the time being. They’re coming over as soon as classes are done.” Barnum straightens, his eyes full of sorrow. “I’m sorry, kids. It’s a sad day when young people have to be kept on a short leash, but that’s the way it is right now. It will get better, I promise.”

“It’s okay,” seven-year-old Marcus pipes up. “We’ll find a better town next time. We always do.”

Barnum’s lips quirk. “That we will.” He nods to Jacks. “May I borrow Caroline for a moment?”

“Certainly.” Jacks nods at her, and Caroline stands, surprised. Her father has never called her out of lessons. Having received very little formal schooling himself, he values it highly.

She follows Barnum out, pushing the door to behind her. “What’s happening?” She studies his drawn face. “Are you okay?”

“Me?” He brushes her cheek with the pad of one weathered thumb. “You don’t need to worry about me. That’s your mother’s job, poor woman.”

She lifts his injured hand in hers, gently inspecting the bandages. “You take risks,” she notes, relieved at the absence of fresh bleeding. “Of course I worry about you.”

“Well, quit it. You’re too young for that.” He holds out a telegram. That strange sorrow swims in his eyes. “This came for you this morning.”

They have a man back in New York who sends them news from time to time. Every time they go to a new town, one of their first stops is the post office to inform him of their new location. But this is the first time Caroline has ever received a telegram herself.

She takes it. Her stomach drops like one of the Strongman’s weights as she reads the truncated text. “It’s from the Royal Ballet Academy in New York,” she says. Her voice seems distant, detached. “They’ve…terminated my membership.” She swallows. “Due to absence.”

Barnum puts an arm around her. She lets him draw her close, laying her head on his chest; her ear fills with the firm beat of his heart. “I knew this would happen,” she manages to say, tasting tears on her lips. “Dad, I knew. They told me before we left this year that my standing wasn’t good. I’ve been gone too long.”

He strokes her hair as she cries softly, the telegram crushed in one fist. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against the crown of her head. “You’re their most promising ballerina.” He kisses her temple. “It’s their loss.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.” His coat smells of hay and the faint tang of sweat and something like the scent of dreams; she inhales it like a drowning woman. “It feels like _my_ loss. I don’t want them to kick me out, Daddy. I want to be a dancer.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“It’s because I just turned sixteen, isn’t it? I’m getting too old to be missing so much. They’re giving up on me.”

“I don’t care what the reasons are. We’ll fight it, believe you me. I won’t let them crush your dream, Caroline.”

“It’s the Academy, Dad.” Caroline shudders hopelessly against his chest. “Even you can’t beat them.”

“Hey.” He steps back, bending a little to look into her face. “I’m P.T. Barnum, dragon-slayer extraordinaire. Did you ever see anything I couldn’t do?”

But she doesn’t want him to _do_ anything. Right this minute, she just wants the greatest man in the world to be her father. “I know you’re busy,” she says, wiping her damp face with the back of one hand. “And I know I’m too old for this. But please – can you stay for just five minutes? Please?”

In the old days, she wouldn’t have been sure of the answer. “Of course,” he says, pulling her back in. “You’re never too old for your daddy, and I’m never too busy for my girl.”

* * *

“Thank you for your help, Caroline.” Jacks stacks textbooks on her desk, sorting them by age level. Like all the furniture on the train, the desk is bolted to the floor. “It’s much appreciated.”

“I really don’t mind.” Caroline watches W.D. lead the gaggle of circus kids out into the late morning, crisp and overcast; the telegram is tucked safely in her pocket. Taylor and Gail walk side-by-side on the grass, the little girl on all fours listening to him solemnly hold forth on the subject of Snarks.

“I know. But I don’t want it to interfere with your own learning.” Jacks has been their resident tutor for the past three years, a treasured solution to the problem of in-transit education. Like most of their people, she came to them out of desperation. Her only child, Gail, was born with camel-like back legs. After Jacks’ husband abandoned them, the school she taught at turned its back on her and she was forced to become a street walker. Three years ago Lettie caught Jacks, near tears, trying to leave her toddler on the steps of one of their circus caravans in New York. Being Lettie, she got the story out of her, and…well, one thing led to another.

Jacks is not a natural fit at the circus. She’s no-nonsense, a young schoolmarm who prefers to dress in shades of grey than in vibrant reds and yellows. She would be pretty if she smiled, which she doesn’t; it won’t be long before that potential fades and she becomes all sharp lines and hard planes. But the children love her, probably because she’s even-handed and never lies to them. Caroline suspects Jacks doesn’t love the children in return so much as she loves teaching them.

“You coming, kid?” Eli leans against the doorframe, nodding at Caroline as she chews one of her eternal wads of tobacco. “Martial law is in effect, and I’m the sheriff round dese here parts.”

“That’s not funny,” Jacks reproves, frowning. Eli is only nineteen and youthfully cocksure; Jacks, on the other hand, is twenty-six going on eighty. “The new safety rules are no laughing matter.”

“I know that.” Eli gives her older cousin an exasperated look; it reminds Caroline of the looks she gets sometimes from Helen. “Just trying to inject some joy into the situation.”

“Thanks for waiting, Eli.” Caroline snatches her bookbag from the back of her wooden chair. “See you, Jacks.”

“Be safe, Caroline.” Jacks looks down her nose at her cousin, scrunching it up in distaste. “You too. You’re younger than you think.”

“And you’re older than you look.” Eli flashes slightly yellowed teeth in a vibrant smile. She may prefer men’s clothes, but she’s rather pretty under all that. “But I like you anyway. Come on, Caroline, fun waits for no one.”

W.D. is already there playing with the rest of the kids, who treat him like an inherited uncle. He has five-year-old Gail hitched up on his back, her deformed legs curled spider-like around his torso. She has the sharp facial lines of her mother but the hair and smile of the sun. “Faster, W.D.,” she giggles as he gallops around, slapping his thighs to mimic hoofbeats. “Giddy-up!”

“Excuse me, miss.” Amid the genial cacophony, Caroline turns to see a shortish man at her elbow, his hat in hand. A few yards beyond him, a stooped old man stands admiring the colourful train siding. “Sid Henson, repairman. I’m lookin’ for…”

“My father, P.T. Barnum.” Caroline tries to smile for their visitor. The telegram seems to be burning a hole right through her pocket into her heart. “Or Phillip Bailey. He should be right in here, sir.”

She leads him to the boxcar where Phillip is putting away his books from the lesson. “Phillip, the repairman’s here,” she says as he looks up. “Do you want me to find Dad?”

“No, you stay with the other kids.” Phillip locks the trunk of books. “Henson, you’re just the man I wanted to see. How are the boiler parts coming along?”

“Well, the order’s been wired to Bangor, and they’ll be sending out the parts tomorrow.” Henson’s Maine drawl rolls out like a slow winter dawn. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple of days if all goes well.”

“Excellent.” Phillip smiles at Caroline, but there are shadows under his eyes. “A silver lining, hm? Henson, have you been introduced to Caroline Barnum?”

“No, and it’s a pleasure.” Henson takes a step back as she extends her hand. “No, you don’t want to shake hands with a repairman, miss. You’re liable to get a dirty palm.”

“I help muck out the pens for my chores. The _elephant_ pens.” Caroline flips her palm up for his inspection. “At least yours is only dirt.”

Henson makes a show of studying her palm. “Well, how about that,” he says, his cheeks creasing with a slow smile. “I better not show myself a coward.”

They shake solemnly.

“That’s my father Red out there,” Henson adds. “He wanted to see the train again. I hope you don't mind.”

“Not at all. Would you have lunch with us?” Phillip invites. “We’ll be eating in the dining car, and you and your father are more than welcome.”

“I won’t turn down the offer.” Henson nods at the group of children outside. “Quite the nursery you’ve got here. They don’t wander, do they?”

His tone has an edge of cautious solicitude. “We have safety precautions in place,” Phillip assures him. “We heard about what’s been going on in Derry. At least two adults with the kids at all times, and so forth.”

“Well, so long as they have adults with them…If you’re looking for a good place for them to play, the Barrens is where all the local children go.” Henson points in the direction of the Kenduskeag. Foliage blocks all view of the river as it hustles busily downhill. “It’s a fair stretch of land, but there are landmarks, and it’s hard to get lost there in the daytime. You want to watch your skirts, though,” he adds to Caroline. “It’s boggy lower down.”

“And it’s safe there?” Phillip questions.

“As safe as any place in Derry, including where we’re standin’ right now. No kids been killed there, anyway.”

“Does the town drain into it?”

“Sure it does. Mostly gravity drains, made of those old clay pipes. The Kitchener Ironworks has been up and running for a few years now, and we had some large-bore cast iron jobs put in recently.” Henson nods in the direction of the Barrens. “Still, it’s clean enough down there, if you stay away from the sewage pipes.”*

“Why do they call it the Barrens?” Caroline’s burnished hair sweeps her neck as she turns to survey the wild acreage. “It doesn’t look barren from here.”

“I couldn’t tell you, miss,” Henson says, scratching the back of his head. “Never thought of it, to be honest.”

Caroline turns to Phillip. “Can we take the kids there? We won’t go far, and we won’t get into trouble.”

Phillip hesitates, but W.D. and Eli are good guardians and he knows it. “I don’t see why not, so long as you don’t stray too far,” he says at last. “Just be _extra_ careful, okay? Stay within shouting distance of the train, and absolutely no one leaves the group for any reason. And have Eli or W.D. grab another adult or two. Better to be safe than sorry.”

“If you do stroll over, take a picnic lunch with you,” Henson advises. “It’s cool this time of year, but still, it might be pleasant.”

“Thank you. It was nice to meet you, Mister Henson.”

“Likewise, miss. Just take care to stay together. Little ones shouldn’t be wandering by themselves in these parts.”

“Right back,” Phillip orders her, and she hurries over to the group of kids.

* * *

Phillip finds Barnum, and the four men eat lunch together in the dining car. It’s strange not to be hurrying to prepare for another show. Charity and Anne sit with Lettie and Constantine across the boxcar; Anne has positioned herself so as to make subtle eyes at Phillip as they eat. Just that is enough to take the autumn chill off his bones.

“We won’t be doing any more shows in Derry.” Phillip voices this as they reach the end of their business talk. “We’d rather not attract more strangers than we need to, and the accident last night…It’s just better all around.”

“Ah, so you’ll be twiddling your thumbs.” Red’s eyes gleam. “Would you care to see a bit of town history while you’re sittin’ on your asses? Wouldn’t take long, and it might fill up the time.”

“Pop,” Sid mutters, looking embarrassed. “I don’t think they’re interested in that. We’re pretty small-fry compared to where they come from.”

If Phillip is being honest, Derry history is about as important to him right now as the highland dancers of Scotland. But Red Henson is trying to do them a kindness, and that’s not something they can afford to take for granted. “I personally could use the distraction,” he says as casually as he can. “I’m in. P.T., how about you?”

He’ll get hell for this later. “Of course,” Barnum says smoothly, darting Phillip a quick damn-you look. “What did you have in mind, Red?”

“Nothin’ but a house, fear you not. 29 Neibolt Street, just on the other side of the fence.” Red points through the window at the fence bordering the beginning of town several hundred yards away. “Big red Cape Cod. Used to belong to the descendant of one of the town founders; Bob Gray, his name was. Died about a hundred years ago. Immigrant from Sweden. His parents moved there from Derry before he was born, and he moved back here as a young man, or so the story goes. Not a penny to his name other than the fourteen dollars in his pocket.”

“And people are allowed to tour the house?” Phillip asks.

“Oh sure. I used to make pocket money as a young man takin’ visitors in. It’s a bit of a landmark, you see, though it’s gettin’ to be rundown. Some folk think it’s haunted, but you know how people talk. If you want, I’ll show you somethin’ really grand in the basement: the town’s very first well, near a hundred and fifty years old. Ayuh, it’s still there, though I don’t know that you’d get much good water from it. Still, the whole house was built around the original wellhouse. Easy to get in; no one’s lived there since Gray died, and the locks are busted.”

Phillip catches Sid Henson’s apologetic eye. He has to fight laughter; more than once he’s given people the same look after some enthusiastic speech from Barnum. “It would be our pleasure,” he says, offering Red a polite smile. “Thank you.”

“Great,” Red says with immense self-satisfaction. “You can bring your kids if you want; I wouldn’t let them go in there by themselves, but with a few of us it should be fine. And I won’t tell them it’s haunted if you like. Don’t want to scare the little tykes, and it’s all bullshit anyway.”

With the group of kids they have, a haunted house is not likely to be much of a deterrent. “Why not,” Phillip says, shrugging at Barnum. “I know Anne will be glad to get out of the train for a while, and probably Charity and the girls too.”

“In that case, let’s make it a full-on field trip.” Barnum cocks a brow at Red. “I don’t think we’ll bring the younger kids, but my girls should be old enough to handle it. You sure you don’t mind playing tour guide? There might be others who want to come along.”

There’s something slightly vengeful in the suggestion. “Nice change from spittin’ into the wind,” Red returns with a grin. “I’ll meet you at the fence in about an hour, how’s that?”

“That’s fine.”

“Come on, son.” Red struggles to his feet, wincing at the pull on his back. “Let’s take another look at that engine while we wait.”

“You’re thinking again.” Barnum looks at Phillip curiously as he sits there, thoughtfully playing with his napkin. “I can always tell. What’s on your mind?”

“The idea of a haunted house.” Phillip laughs a little, but even to himself it doesn’t sound happy. “When he said that, I thought of last night. During the show,” he clarifies as the image of the Death Hands

 _(and they_ were _warm when you touched them)_

rises in his mind. “When you saw the…whatever you saw.”

Barnum snorts a laugh of his own. “Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts now,” he says incredulously.

“Of course not, that would be stupid. I guess…” _(they_ were _warm)_ “…the idea of what’s been going on in Derry is just hard to accept. And the marks on our boiler – what kind of freak accident made those?” Phillip runs a hand over his face. “Why, of all the places we could have stalled, does it have to be here?”

“I know how you feel. Every parent on this train does.”

“My wife’s going to give birth any day, P.T. Any day my child is going to be born into a town in which children are dropping off the map in every direction. And there’s not a thing I can do about it.” Phillip drops his head into his hands. “Not a damn thing.”

“Listen.” Barnum waits until Phillip raises his head. “You and Anne are not alone. We’re all in this together. Just like we were when Taylor was born and the doctors said he was too early and he wouldn’t make it. He did, though. He’s hard to beat down, just like you and Anne were. Sometimes fate slaps you in the face and sometimes, kid, you slap it right back.”

“Well, that much is true,” Phillip concedes. “I just wish I could do a little less slapping. My hand is starting to hurt.”

Barnum gives his shoulder a friendly pat. “Come on, let’s get some people together. For our _museum tour_. I _am_ going to get you for that, by the way.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Phillip rises as Anne quirks her lips at him in a clear invitation, unable to resist any longer. “First, I’m going to kiss my wife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kind attention to this story! Next chapter up Monday Oct. 12!
> 
> *About playing in the Barrens where the sewers dump out: In 1877 standards of hygiene were significantly lower than the ones we abide by today. So if you think it's gross that kids would play near raw sewage, just remember these people lived in the Victorian era and probably didn't think twice about it! (Also, even in Stephen King's IT book, which took place in the 1950s, the kids also played in the Barrens with sewage flowing nearby.) We love our circus family to bits, but the reality is that they probably did not wash their hands on a regular basis and would have done their business in unsanitary pewter chamber pots that they dumped by hand.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the circus tours a "haunted house."

**Chapter 5**

Phillip leans against the frame of their boxcar door. “You sure you’re up to going?” he asks Anne, who is frowning assiduously at the tiny mirror on the wall. “There’s no pressure. It’s just an old house.”

“I need to get out of this train for a while.” Anne twines her long braid into a tight bun. “I feel like a beached whale.”

“Oh, heart…”

“Really, Phillip. I hate being pregnant. I can’t even _move_ , and that used to be my whole life.” Anne looks at him, tears standing in her eyes. “I want this to be over.”

“I know.” Phillip tries to put his arms around her, but she shifts away. He draws back, stung. “Did I say something?”

“I’m sorry, I’m having a bad day.” But she doesn’t move back toward him. “I’m afraid if this baby takes much longer, I’ll have trouble. I’m small, Phillip. I might not be able to birth it.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Tired and feeling rejected, Phillip speaks a trifle too sharply. “I’m not even going to entertain the notion, so put it out of your mind.”

“You’re not God. If I die, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“You’re not going to die,” Phillip snaps, more at the thought than at her.

“I’m not a character in one of your plays.” Anne says this softly to her reflection, but it arrows straight to Phillip’s heart. “You don’t decide what happens to me.”

Phillip rolls his lips tightly together. He’s a gentleman by inclination and training, and no matter what a woman says to him, he can’t raise his voice. And he knows deep down that Anne is just tired and afraid and doesn’t really want to fight. But he’s tired too, and this day has already gone badly wrong, including a near-thrashing by an angry lumberjack.

“I’ll be right back,” he says shortly, leaving Anne with her lips quivering in front of the mirror. “I’m going to say goodbye to Taylor.”

* * *

Phillip pokes his head into one of the smaller circus tents, the home of Raya and her crystal ball filled with glitter. “Thanks for watching Taylor,” he says to her as she entertains the jugglers’ kids with a sly magic trick. “I hope he doesn’t give you any trouble.”

“He’s never trouble.” Raya nods sharply at the back of the tent, her eyes fixed on her trick. “He’s reading back there.”

Phillip finds his son curled up on the ground with a blanket, reciting verses softly to himself. “Hey buddy,” he says, squatting next to him. “How far have you gotten?”

Taylor pauses in his recitation. “Fit Two,” he says at last. “ _We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days, (Seven weeks to the day I allow)…”_

“ _But a Snark, on which we might lovingly gaze,_ _We have never beheld till now,_ ” Philip finishes with him. He smiles. “Great job. You’re eating that up like cake. I wish I had a memory like yours.”

“Where you going?”

“To see an old house. We won’t be long.”

“Daddy, why don’t people like me?” Taylor asks without segue, without the slightest change of inflection.

Phillip is floored. Two possibilities occur to him: one, that his son erroneously feels the entire world hates him; and two, that it is true and he has been blind to it. “What do you mean, why don’t people like you? Everybody likes you.”

“No,” Taylor says simply; his tone is even but his lips are pursed unhappily. “Nobody listens to me. And they all play games without me.”

“Well,” Phillip says, treading with the utmost care over this sudden minefield, “sometimes people don’t understand someone who likes to read a lot, especially other kids.” He hesitates, then adds, “Kids didn’t talk to me much either when I was young. I read a lot like you do. And I was shy. It helps sometimes if you’re the one to make the first move.”

Taylor is silent, and Phillip has the feeling his son has no idea what he’s talking about. All Taylor knows is the world between his ears; the world outside his brain makes no sense to him.

“I’m gonna marry Gail when I grow up.” Taylor says this next thing almost offhand, chin propped on the heel of one hand. “I asked her and she said yes.”

Phillip stares at his son, struck speechless once more. For a moment the stark picture of his future daughter-in-law walking down the aisle on all fours, legs bent unnaturally beneath her misshapen wedding dress, dominates him. Then just as abruptly he is overwhelmed by a deluge of remorse at his callousness, his hypocrisy, the shamefulness of his shame.

“Taylor,” he says when he can speak again, “if you and Gail want to get married when you grow up, you go right ahead and get married.”

“Ian said not to. Because of her legs. But she listens when I talk about stuff. We’re bestest friends.”

Phillip laughs, his eyes brimming. How simple it sounds! As a child, he would have been strapped for even talking about marrying someone so different from himself; as an adult determined to do it, he was disowned. And suddenly his predominant emotion is gratitude: gratitude that he’s able to do it differently with Taylor, childish though his affections still are. Gratitude that his son has a person whose affection he actively senses.

“You know where you got your name from?” Phillip asks at last, blinking back the traitorous tears.

“Papa,” Taylor says instantly.

“Right on. Papa’s name is Phineas Taylor Barnum.” Phillip gazes at his son’s dark curly head. “And he didn’t let anything stop him from caring about people. So neither should you.”

Taylor just stares at the page, eternally thoughtful. It will be a few years before such lessons really make sense to his little mind. But then they will, and understanding will hit his soul like a beam of sunlight, scorching and lovely.

* * *

When Phillip returns to their boxcar, Anne is standing in the doorway with a blotchy face, looking pretty in a cream cotton dress. “Help me?” she sniffs. The step into the boxcar has become awkward over the last couple of months, a fact that continually embarrasses her.

His heart melts. He twines an arm around her back, and she clings to him as he lifts her and settles her gently on her feet. “Okay?” he murmurs.

She settles her face for a moment against his neck. Her cheek is damp. “Please don’t give me up,” she says simply, her voice worn smooth with weariness.

This is something she says from time to time after they’ve had a fight, and he hates it with every fibre of his being. It comes out of her old slave mindset, out of the perceived discrepancy between white and black, out of the idea that if someone isn’t pleased with her, they’ll simply offload her onto someone else. He has literally begged her on his knees to stop saying it, but old habits die hard.

So all he says, his arms tightly around her rounded waist, is, “I won’t give you up, Anne. I promise.”

* * *

The first spatters of rain kiss their faces as they troop across the field toward the town fence. Sid Henson is gone, apparently returned to his work. “Would you look at that,” Red Henson says, staring openly at their small group of Oddities. “I’m seein’ the circus for free.”

Lettie wipes her impeccably combed beard nervously. “Yeah?” Charles jibes from beside her. “And from down here, I’m seein’ a hole in your crotch. What of it?”

“Easy, little man.” Red looks at him, eyes twinkling. “I ain’t judging.”

“You really think this is a good idea?” W.D. mutters to Phillip as Red wrestles with the gate latch. “From what you said, that lumberjack is gunning for you.”

“It’s an abandoned house on the edge of town.” Phillip rubs the back of Anne’s hand with his thumb. “He’s not going to know I was here.”

“Big-city boy.” W.D. gives his brother-in-law a look of amusement. “Town this size, that guy’s gonna know if you fart upwind.”

“Well, I’m not planning to do that, so stop worrying.”

“Here we are,” Red announces. He pushes the gate open, and they all slip through. “29 Neibolt Street.”

The Cape Cod rears three stories above them, its dark peaked windows frowning down like displeased eyes. Phillip’s shoulders hunch unconsciously under their glare. The paint, no doubt once a vibrant red, has peeled and faded into a sickly shade of pink. The panes of glass are opaque with grime. The yard is full of random debris, and dying sunflowers line the inside of the fence. A single gnarled tree, stripped of its growth, presides over it all like a vulture.

“Well.” Barnum clears his throat, breaking the silence. “It’s seen better days.”

“Furniture’s all still inside where it was left. Interestin’, to see the way people used to live.” Red shuffles up to the cast iron house gate, nodding at them to follow. “Come on, let’s get you folks out of the rain.”

Inside the yard fence, they cross the yard, boots crunching in the dead leaves. Phillip ushers Anne under the porch awning as Red fumbles with the doorknob, wishing she had stayed back at the train. The house looks none too clean or inviting; Red made it sound more like a museum than this dilapidated castle. “You can go back if you want,” he murmurs, but she shakes her head.

The front door opens with a loud groan. As it swings back, Phillip catches a whiff of something unpleasant but undefinable, like a single rotting fruit in a full pantry. Red steps inside, knocking his boots against the lintel, and they follow suit one by one until they are standing inside the foyer. As they gather, a tight group of Oddities, the house seems to utter a slow sigh around them.

“Big house.” With that understatement, Red commences his tour. “To your left you’ll see the main parlour; nice little couch in its day, I s’ppose, and a couple of tables. There’s the sittin’ room on your right, and some other rooms in the back of the house.”

He leads them further in until they’re standing in a wide space with a staircase winding up and a fireplace that reads, rather blithely, _GOOD CHEER GOOD FRIENDS_. Above the mantle, a dirty mirror reflects their slightly distorted faces.

“Goes up to the second and third floors.” Red jerks his thumb at the staircase. “Lotta interesting stuff up there, if you want to explore. Just be careful you don’t topple anything over on yourselves.” He points down a narrow hallway with doors on either side. “Kitchen’s that way, and the basement. You’ll probably find a pantry that way too, but don’t go rootin’ around in there; probably a shitload of rats, if the ladies’ll pardon my French.”

“You told my husband a Bob Gray used to live here.” Charity traces the letters on the fireplace; her face is pensive. “What was he like?”

“Liked to entertain. Or that’s what the stories say.”

Charity looks at her finger, then wipes it distastefully on her skirts. “That accounts for this,” she says, gesturing at the maxim.

“Not really, ma’am. It’s not visitors I’m talkin’ about. Gray was a clown.” Red nods at the interested looks from the rest of the group. “Ayuh. Joined a sideshow when he first came to America, or what we’d call a circus since you folks started up. Must have been damn good, because he got mighty rich mighty fast. But he put on shows till the day he died, they say. He was the spirit of Derry, you might say.”

Phillip is glad they left the smaller children at home. His spirits feel oppressed in the confines of this old mansion, the way a cloud sailing over the sun will suddenly dim the light. “Did he leave any descendants?” he asks, making an effort.

“Nope. His wife died giving birth to his only child, a girl named Elvira. Elvira died the same night Gray did; some say he killed himself when he saw she was dead, though that could just be more talk.” Red catches Anne’s eye and shakes his head. “I’m sorry to be bringin’ up delicate subjects in your condition, ma’am. I never did learn to hold my tongue.”

“That’s all right.” Anne smiles at him, but Phillip can see the strange lassitude of the house working on her too. “I’m tougher than I look.”

“You’d have to be, to travel with these folk.” With that cheerful judgement, Red takes his pipe from his breast pocket and begins the slow process of lighting it. “Feel free to wander around for a bit. But don’t go down in the basement without me, especially you two girls; you might fall in the well.”

“Can we see it?” Helen pipes up.

“Sure, after you’re done with the rest of the house. It’s the best part, so we’ll save it for last, eh?”

They disperse, wandering through the sprawling collection of rooms. That low, unpleasant smell pervades the air. As Lettie and Charles drift into one of the back rooms, Phillip finds himself meandering with Barnum in the direction of the parlour. Charity and Anne are studying an intricate seventeenth-century couch in the sitting room across the hall, now caked with dirt and stained with rainwater.

“I’m not sure whether to be disgusted or fascinated.” Phillip bends over a worn writing-desk with a broken pen on its surface. An inkwell, the ink long dried to a dark crust, sits abandoned to one side. He works open a drawer and the musty smell of yellowed paper wafts out. “A hundred years ago, a man sat here and wrote letters and paid his bills and read books.” He begins working on the next drawer, mild excitement finally raising its head. “I wonder if any of his letters are preserved.”

Across the room, Barnum has his head bent toward the wall, fixated on something. “Phil,” he says, his tone oddly perplexed. “When was the first photograph taken?”

“Uh, the twenties, I think. I want to say 1826. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Why?”

“Well, there’s a photograph in this wall.” Barnum leans in, positioning one eye to look through a crack in the wallpaper. “Right in there. I can’t get at it.”

“And I wouldn’t recommend you try.” Phillip comes over as Barnum tries in vain to poke the fingers of his good hand through the crack. “What are you trying to do, man? Get your other hand bitten? Red said there are rats in here.”

“Yeah, but…” Barnum wiggles his fingers, frustrated, then gives up. “Do you think we could get away with punching a hole in the wall?”

“Why do you even ask these questions?”

“You mean like, _Do you_ _want to join my circus?_ ” Barnum grins back. “Sometimes I get lucky.”

“And sometimes I pay the price.” Phillip lays his face against the wall, trying to see the photo. It’s loosely rolled up, obscuring most of the picture. He can just see the grinning face of a balding man who appears to be standing in front of a caravan of some sort; he can’t see the writing on the side except for the final letters _ISE_. “It looks like a modern photograph. Too clean to be one of the older ones.”

“So what’s it doing in an abandoned house behind a wall?”

“I think the better question is, why are you peering into cracks?”

“Looking in unexpected places got me where I am today.” Barnum gives him a wounded look. “Do you realise the kind of stuff Charity and I used to hide in that old house we explored as kids? There’s a treasure trove behind those walls, I’m telling you.”

“Well, this isn’t much of a treasure.” Phillip leans away from the wall, grimacing a little at the sour odour from behind the aged wood. “It’s a recent photo. It was probably put here by kids doing what you and Charity did.”

“Fine, spoil my fun.” Barnum throws up his hands exasperatedly. “I thought I had a genuine mystery on my hands.”

“Or a ghost story?” Phillip arches one brow. “This house is creepy, I grant you, and I’m pretty sure railroad winos are using it as a pisspot, but that doesn’t mean it’s haunted.”

“Maybe, but I still want to punch a hole in the wall.”

“If you must, you must, but I don’t want to hear about it.”

* * *

Accompanied by W.D., Caroline and Helen climb the stairs to the second floor. Each step creaks and groans as they ascend; even a ghost would have trouble walking up these stairs undetected. “Mind what Henson said about rats,” W.D. warns as they spread out to explore. “You see one, you get out of there fast. You don’t wanna get bit by one of those suckers, believe me.”

Caroline pokes her head into a room heavily shaded by moth-eaten drapes. For a moment she gets a fright; the room is cluttered with junk, and she could almost swear she sees a man standing in one corner. Then her eyes adjust to the dimness and she realises it’s only a mannequin covered with an old cloth.

“Don’t be a child,” she says softly to herself, but quickly withdraws nevertheless. The room gives her a creepy feeling.

W.D. and Helen are chatting in low voices in another room across the wide landing. Caroline climbs the second staircase to the third floor, her boots clunking hollowly on the wood. Cobwebs span the bannisters, but they aren’t dewy forest splendors; these are old and dusty, sagging lifelessly from their supports.

The third floor is smaller, with two short hallways leading left and right to a single door at the end of each. Caroline ventures down the righthand hall; her body seems to constrict as she walks, as though to avoid brushing the walls. The hall itself feels tighter than it looked. By the time she’s reached the door, the hairs on the nape of her neck are stiff. She reaches for the doorknob in slow motion, reluctant and yet compelled.

The door screaks slowly inward. This room is cluttered too, ancient props tucked into corners and abandoned mid-floor like unwanted pets, thick dust layering everything. Everything feels yellow and old and worn out, preserved for nothing and no one. A sudden wave of sorrow briefly overtakes her unease. The relics of Bob Gray are sad and lonely, the way their own circus paraphernalia might look after a hundred years of disuse. Her chest tightens, and before she can find herself crying over artifacts that have nothing to do with her, she closes the door firmly behind her.

She stands near the stairs, looking at the last door, her unease back in full force. Faintly, she can hear W.D. and Helen’s voices below, their footsteps no more than muted thumps on the decrepit floors. The house seems to shrink to fit her, to become no more or less than this final hallway and its final room.

The doorknob is cold on her hand as she twists it, gently shoving the door inward.

The room is massive, bracketed by dirty floor-to-ceiling bay windows that strain and mute the light. Raindrops pat on the glass, leaving scraggly trails behind. Caroline steps in, looking around with a feeling of entering a disregarded sanctum. A workbench occupies one wall, littered with jars of dried, colourful greasepaint. Several application rags, stained and stiff, lie among the jars. Against another wall are several mannequins, all dressed in clown costumes.

“Good Lord.” Her soft exclamation startles her, muffled in the still air. She turns slowly on the spot, taking in the room with wide eyes. In her mind, it seems she can hear the dim strain of a carnival melody, infused and changed by the bell-like giggles of little children. Her skin ripples in goosebumps as her eyes alight on a hand-drawn poster on one wall of a clown holding out a massive balloon. _Join the circus!_ it cheerfully exhorts. _You’ll float too!_

From behind her, something thumps.

Caroline freezes. Her hands are clenched by her sides, her mouth dry as a desert. _It’s not the mannequins_. She can’t swallow, can hardly breathe, can’t make herself turn to look at them. _It’s not the mannequins, it’s not like that day you were alone in the apartment, it’s not…_

Another thump, closer. Her heart swells in her chest until she thinks it will explode. She’s five and she’s alone in their rundown apartment in Manhattan, alone in Daddy’s workroom where he keeps all his tailoring stuff, alone because Daddy is at work and Mommy and Helen are in the kitchen. Mommy is trying to get Helen to finish her lunch, and Daddy never comes home before sundown, so Caroline…

 _Thump_. Closer. It doesn’t have feet, of course mannequins don’t have feet, just those heavy stands that keep them upright so Daddy can make clothes on them, so he can make fine clothes for people with lots of money, and she’s wandered into his workroom against the rules because she likes to run her hands over the lovely material rich people pay for…

That carnival music again, but this time she could swear she hears it with her ears, not just her mind, dancing and cavorting in the air around her. Another thump, and now it’s only three or four feet behind her, and soon it will reach out with its stiff arms and grab her.

 _Thump_.

Just like that day in the apartment, when she tried to use Daddy’s mannequin to climb up on his workbench, and it fell and trapped her within its arms and she couldn’t lift it off, and she _screamed_ and _screamed_ and _screamed_ …

“Come join the circus, Caroline.” The rotting voice chuckles like the waters of the Kenduskeag, roiling over its poisonous words. “If you do, you’ll float too.”

The air moves behind her as something unspeakable reaches for her.

Her paralysis breaks. With a hoarse scream that barely makes it out of her throat, she whirls, beating frantically at the air with her fists. _Mommy, get it off!_ But there’s nothing there, just the room as she first saw it, the mannequins politely lined up against the far wall. _There’s no need for unladylike behaviour_ , they seem to say. _You’re a rather low kind of girl, Caroline Barnum_. _Rather classless. No wonder they won’t let you become a dancer._

She turns and hurries out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

“This is the pride and joy of Derry.” Red Henson grimacingly takes the last few steps to the basement, relying heavily on the shaky railing. “Right here in the basement of 29 Neibolt.”

They gather in front of the well, a simple stone circle surrounded by a dark, dank basement. “A hundred and fifty years old, you said?” Phillip asks, his arm around Anne, who was grimly determined to make it down the stairs.

“Ayuh. As old as the town; first well it ever had, back when the Derrie Company first settled here.” Red surveys the well as if seeing it for the first time himself. “And now it’s hidden all the way down here. Bleedin’ shame.”

“Is it deep?” Lettie asks, eyeing the well cautiously. Curiously, no one seems eager to take a closer look.

“Deep? Oh, ayuh; a hundred feet if it’s an inch. Maybe more.” Red shrugs. “No one really knows, and no one bothers to find out.”

Caroline hugs herself with her arms as Red talks; the basement is cold, but her encounter in the attic has left her far colder. She can’t convince herself that nothing happened, though she knows perfectly well that’s what her parents will try to do if she tells them. And maybe by tomorrow morning she’ll be able to believe that she _was_ just being silly, that she _was_ just taken by a flight of her imagination.

But here, standing in the basement, she can’t.

“Back in the day, it was called the Penny Well.” Red is talking to her and Helen now; she tries to pay attention. “Folk said that if you pitched a penny down and made a wish, you’d get whatever you wished for. But if you weren’t grateful to the spirit of the well who made it come true, the penny would come back to you when you drew water from your own well, and then you’d be cursed.”

“That doesn’t sound like a real thing,” Helen says, skeptical as always. “I mean, that’s not how wishes work.”

“Oh? And how do wishes work, young lady?”

“I tell my dad and he makes them come true,” Helen says smartly, and all the adults burst into laughter. Caroline shivers; the house seems to be bending toward them at the sound of their merriment, but not to join in. Maybe just to listen.

_Join the circus, Caroline. If you do, you’ll float too._

“How about we test that theory?” Red grins invitingly. “You wanna toss in a penny for luck?”

Helen smiles back at him, charmed by his gruff cheer, but Caroline already knows what her answer will be. “I’m too old for wishes, Mister Henson,” she explains seriously. “Thanks, though. It’s a really cool house.”

“That’s all right, young lady, someone’s gotta show it off.” Red looks at Caroline, and for a moment she thinks he knows what happened to her, that he can see it in her pale face and wide eyes, and keeps her secret. “How about you, young lady?” he asks gravely. “Would you like to pitch a penny?”

“Sure,” she says, because she’s far more polite than Helen and knows it will please her mother if she shows kindness to this old man who is trying to do a nice thing. “I would love to. Dad, do you have a penny?”

“The old refrain,” he says, rolling his eyes dramatically. He fishes in his pocket and comes up with a shiny copper piece. “Here, spend my fortune.”

His wry smile warms some of the coldness in her bones, and she gratefully takes the penny from his hand. Instantly she detects that it’s one of his weighted coins, the ones he uses to win tosses and games with Phillip. _It’s weighted,_ she mouths at him, but he gives her a slight shake of the head, eyes darting to his partner. To make an issue of it will be to reveal his secrets, and as much as she adores Phillip, she also delights in her father’s mischief.

“Step right up,” Red says grandly to her, and she compliantly makes a show of doing so. The well yawns beneath her, a black maw opening into a dismaying forever. “Now, before you pitch that, close your eyes and make a wish – don’t tell anyone! Then, as you throw it in, say, _Penny wise, pound foolish_. Those are the magic words. God knows why, they just are.”

“Okay.” Caroline closes her eyes, pretending to think of a wish with the penny warming in her hand, and suddenly a thought pops into her mind: _wish to be a dancer._ She almost laughs at the childishness of this thought, but the yearning that laces it is not trivial; it is intense and serious and even, in its own way, desperate. _I wish to be a dancer_ , she thinks, and tosses the penny into the well. “Penny wise, pound foolish,” she recites obediently, and waits for the _plunk_.

It never comes. After a long parade of seconds, she leans over the well to listen, placing her hands on the raised stone edge. Still nothing. And finally, she looks at Red Henson, who nods at her knowingly.

“Told you,” he says. “It’s a mighty deep well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for your kind support! Next chapter up Monday Oct. 19! And Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
> 
> Note: The phrase "Penny wise, pound foolish" was a common saying back in the day to describe someone who was wise in small things ("pennies") but not in big things ("pounds").


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Victorian-era childbirth is not great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, my lovely readers! :)

**Chapter 6**

Taylor wakes in a dream of the Barrens.

The air is hazy with light, the rich foliage drenched with sun. Birds sing loudly around him. Oddly, against the broad bole of a nearby tree stands a stone fireplace, inscribed with the words _GOOD CHEER GOOD FRIENDS_. Above the fireplace is a mirror. Taylor is astonished to see that he’s tall enough to observe his reflection. His round childish face is gone, replaced by angular gravity and a full, solemn mouth. His dark hair tumbles over his temples, inspired by his mama’s curls, but his eyes are the blazing cerulean of his father. What might almost be mistaken for a deep tan, if not for his hair, infuses his skin.

 _I grew up_ , he thinks with astonishment, and even the quality of his thought has changed, has become deeper and older.

“Hello, young man.” Taylor whirls to see a group of men sitting nearby. With delight, he realizes they are the Snark hunters from his beloved poem. The Bellman, clearly the leader and dressed in dream-mimicry of P.T. Barnum, beckons to Taylor. “Come join us, we’re just discussing your unfortunate plight.”

Taylor approaches them, feeling stiff and awkward, yet pleased. “I’m Taylor,” he says, not quite daring to make eye contact with any of them. “I think I’m dreaming.”

“What of it? A dream is just another layer of reality.” The Bellman pats the ground. “Sit, son, the Snark won’t get you here.”

Taylor looks around instinctively, and his blood runs cold. Near the Kenduskeag, a red balloon floats above the ground. It’s bigger now, the size of his head. This time, a tuft of orange hair peeks out impishly from one curved side. “The Snark,” he says in a low voice, sitting as close to the others as he dares. “I can see its hair.”

“Yes, but don’t look at it, you’ll only encourage it.” The Bellman taps his knee to get his attention, and Taylor jerks at the unexpected contact. “About that Snark. It’s not just one of those harmless little ones that like to play with the laces of abandoned shoes from time to time.” He lights his pipe, giving Taylor a grim look. “You’ve got a Boojum on your hands, son.”

“I know,” Taylor says quietly, his hands clasped over his knees. “But I don’t know what to do about it.”

He very deliberately does not look over at the balloon.

“That’s preposterous,” another man, the Butcher, declares from his right. “You’re the smartest soul on that train.”

“No, I think Father and W.D. are smarter. Jacks, too.”

“No, no. They’re all smart, but they’re not like you. You, boy, you’ll grow up to be a bona fide _genius_. If you have your father and uncle to thank for what grew between your ears…well, no harm in _that_.”

“My mama’s smart too,” Taylor remarks thoughtfully.

“Oh, of course, there are degrees of smart,” the Bellman says, waving this off. “She’s no slouch, gents, may we assent to that?”

Emphatic murmurs all around.

“Still, my boy, the degree of intelligence you possess…Why, one day you’ll put your father to shame!”

“Oh, I don’t want to do _that_ ,” Taylor says, alarmed.

“Don’t be a dunce,” the Bellman says kindly. “He’ll be thrilled. Don’t you know that’s what people like best about you?”

Taylor blinks. “Oh,” he says. “I thought people _didn’t_ like that about me.”

“Some of them are jealous, but on the whole, people admire it. It’s your only redeeming quality. How else can you be properly human?”

“I’m _Homo sapiens_ ,” Taylor says cautiously.

“And there he goes again,” the Bellman sighs. “My lad, you really have to learn not to take everything literally. Of course you’re _Homo sapiens_. But so is your mother, and lots of people refuse to consider that when they look at her. What makes people see you as human has to do with your secondary characteristics, not your species. Not only are you part black, you’re going to have a deuce of a time convincing people you’re really human when you don’t smile, or spend time with them, or ever let yourself be seen in company without a book.”

“But that’s stupid. Books are _full_ of people. How can I not be spending time with them?”

“Behold the antisocial,” the Bellman says, gesturing at Taylor. “The one, the only, the never-to-be-replicated Taylor Bailey, who liveth not on bread alone but on every word that proceedeth from the bound page.”

“If I didn’t like reading so much, I wouldn’t know about the Snark,” Taylor points out.

“Much good it does you when you don’t know what to _do_ about it.” The Bellman leans back and crosses his ankles. “All right, boy, what does it say about hunting Snarks?”

Taylor doesn’t have to think twice. He recites,

_You may seek it with thimbles, and seek it with care,_

_You may hunt it with forks and hope,_

_You may threaten its life with a railway-share,_

_You may charm it with smiles and soap._

“But I don’t know what any of that means,” he adds.

“Well, smiles are out,” the Bellman says, looking at Taylor’s sober face. “And soap, probably, too – I don’t suppose you have an overabundance of that in a circus.”

“We’re very clean,” Taylor objects over the sniggers of the group.

The Bellman goes on as if he didn’t hear. “I don’t suppose you have a railway-share lying around anywhere?”

“Well, my father’s part owner of the circus train. Do you think that counts?”

“I daresay it helps. Forks, no doubt, you have; I’d keep one on my person at all times if I were you.”

Taylor makes a mental note to take a fork from the dining car when he wakes up.

“Now, as for thimbles…your papa is a tailor, isn’t he? And your mama would have one. Mind, you can’t use a thimble to _fight_ a Snark, only to seek it.”

“I’m sure I can get one,” Taylor assures him.

“Care, naturally, you will want to take on any hunt of this nature,” the Bellman continues. “But hope…Well.” His face is grave. “I don’t know that you have much of that on hand.”

Taylor chances another look at the balloon with the tuft of orange hair poking gleefully from one side. “I know,” he says softly. “I think we’re all going to die.”

“Quite possible.” The Bellman nods at the upslope, in the direction of the circus train. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you should be getting back. I can hear it beginning.”

“What’s beginning?”

“Your sister Josephine is almost here. Or she’s trying to be. She’s been holding off as long as she can, my boy, because of that Snark – but she can’t stay in your mama’s belly forever. And she might have stayed too long. There’s going to be trouble.”

Taylor opens his mouth to cry out – _What trouble? Trouble with my mama?_ – but as he does, the world begins to twist and dissolve, a nightmarish kaleidoscope of Barrens and balloon. All he can think as he falls away from one reality and toward another is, _Please God don’t let there be trouble, don’t let there be trouble with my mama…_

* * *

“Mama,” Taylor moans, breaking through the surface of his dream, and he’s a little boy again, frightened and cold in the dark. “Mama’s in trouble.”

“Shh, hush, Taylor.” Daddy bends over him, his dark hair falling over his brow. “Mama’s going to be fine. The baby’s coming.”

“I know. Mama’s in trouble and the Snark has orange hair…”

“Come here, Taylor.” Mama’s voice is pale and shaky from the bed. “Come here, baby, I want to talk to you.”

Taylor hugs his blanket to him and climbs out of bed, pattering across the cold floor. Daddy is getting dressed. “Mama, don’t let Josephine come,” Taylor says, looking with dreadful fear at the swell of her stomach. “The Snark wants to eat her.”

“I’ll be right back.” Daddy slides open the railcar door. “Taylor, watch out for Mama, okay?”

Mama grips the bedsheets with one hand; Taylor can see sweat beading her forehead in the faint candlelight. “How do you know we were going to use that name for a girl?” she whispers.

Taylor clutches his blanket to his chest. “I dreameded it.”

“You dreamed it, did you?” Mama smiles weakly. “It’s Meema’s middle name, remember? Charity Josephine. Pretty, isn’t it? If it’s a girl.”

“It’s a girl.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself, little boy.”

“I dreameded it,” Taylor repeats hopelessly. “Mama, don’t let her come out. The Snark is behind the balloon.”

“There are no such things as Snarks,” Mama tells him gently, then her whole body stiffens. A sharp hiss escapes her lips and her eyes squeeze shut.

Taylor starts rocking back and forth. Sometimes, when the bubble starts expanding in his chest like it is now, the motion soothes him. “Don’t hurt Mama,” he chants in a monotone. “Don’t hurt Mama.”

After a long few seconds, the cramp eases, and Mama relaxes with a rush of air. “It’s okay, Taylor,” she says, blinking back tears. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

The railcar door slides back open. Meema steps in with her silver-shot hair tumbling down her back. “Annie, love,” she says warmly, and the tight feeling in Taylor’s chest eases a little. “It’s that time, isn’t it?”

“My water broke.” Mama’s face is tense and lined with pain. “All over the bed. I don’t know how I’m going to clean it…”

“Hush now, don’t be silly.” Meema strokes Mama’s brow; Taylor, who avoids physical contact whenever he can, watches this action with fascination. “Phillip is sending O’Malley for the town doctor, and Benny is on his way.”

“Taylor’s frightened.” Mama reaches for him, then thinks better of it. “Aren’t you, baby? He thinks…” She seizes up in another cramp, and Taylor rocks harder. “He thinks,” she gasps after a long stretch of silence, “the Snark is after us.”

Meema looks down at Taylor, and before he can automatically avert his eyes, he catches a strange expression there that he doesn’t understand. “Does he?” she says. “Well, Taylor, we’re safe in here. You don’t have to worry.”

“The Snark is behind the balloon,” he repeats stubbornly, his chest tightening again. “It’s a Boojum. A bad Snark.”

There’s a noise at the door, and Benny the vet steps in with his case in his hands and his housecoat swathed around his lanky form. “Well, well,” he says cheerfully, smiling down at Taylor, “it looks like someone’s about to become a big brother.”

* * *

It’s almost an hour before O’Malley returns with the doctor, and by then Anne is in the full grip of intense contractions. Most of the train windows are lit up with candles; Anne is determinedly quiet, but information in the circus travels by sheer osmosis. “Got some more water,” Angus says, setting down the buckets outside the boxcar. His massive muscles ripple with the effort. “She okay?”

“As okay as she can be.” Phillip runs a hand through his hair for the hundredth time. “Where’s the doctor? Surely he won’t refuse to come just because we’re a circus.”

“It’s going to be fine. He’s probably searching out a midwife. You know how people are when they’re woken up in the middle of the night.”

Yes, he does; anxiety alone is sufficient to sharpen his mind at this hour. Even as he opens his mouth to continue fretting, he catches the sound of hoofbeats approaching from the direction of town. “Thank God,” he says hoarsely. “I knew O’Malley wouldn’t come back alone.”

The midwife is notable by her absence. “Thank you for coming,” Phillip says, steadying the doctor’s horse by the bridle as he dismounts. “I see you couldn’t get a midwife.”

“I’m not bringing an honest woman out to a circus in the dead of night.” With that brusque explanation, the doctor swings down from the saddle. “You’re the husband?”

“Yes. Phillip Bailey.”

“Doctor Michaels.” He doesn’t offer to shake hands. “Where’s the woman?”

“She’s in here.” Sending O’Malley a grateful look, Phillip leads Michaels to their railcar. “She’s been in labour for about an hour.”

Their humble home is lit with several blazing lanterns, curtains drawn discreetly over the window. Taylor has so far refused to leave, so he sits clutching his book and blanket in the corner. Charity, Lettie, and Benny preside over Anne. “Who’s that?” Michaels asks, nodding at Benny.

“He’s our vet.” The doctor’s abruptness wreaks havoc with Phillip’s stretched nerves, but he tries to remain civil. “We don’t have a doctor on board, so he helps when he can.”

“I want him out.” Michaels sheds his coat over Taylor’s bed. “Also you women and that child.”

“I’m staying with her,” Charity says quietly, holding Anne’s hand. “I’m here in place of her mother.”

“Then I suggest you make yourself useful and act as my midwife.” Michaels begins unbuttoning his cuffs. “Hopefully this won’t take long.”

He steps forward to take a closer look at Anne, and his expression changes.

He looks at Phillip. “This is against the law,” he says.

Phillip’s nails dig into the palms of his hands. “Not in New York,” he says. “Which is where we were married.”

“She’s a mulatto.”

“Don’t call her that.”

“It’s illegal in Maine.”

“I’m well aware of your anti-miscegenation laws, thank you.”*

“That boy.” Michaels points scornfully at Taylor. “Is he the offspring?”

“He’s my son.” Phillip’s voice trembles slightly with suppressed anger. “Please, doctor, my wife is in labour. Why does it matter what her colour is?”

“It’s an offense against God and man, that’s why.” Michaels bends over to peer between Anne’s tented legs, pulling a pair of spectacles out of his breast pocket. “Hm. Not far along. This is going to be a long one.”

There’s nothing Phillip can imagine wanting less than for this doctor to hang around for several hours. “Is she going to be okay?” he asks, holding Anne’s hand.

“Don’t know. She’s small. How long has the pregnancy been?”

“I’m two weeks overdue,” Anne says tiredly. Her eyes are full of pain and humiliation.

“Not good.” With that prognosis, Michaels waves the others away. “Out, all of you. You too, Bailey. No husbands in my birthing rooms.”

“This isn’t one of your birthing rooms.” Phillip can no longer hide the anger in his voice. “This is where my wife and I live, and I’m staying.”

Michaels sighs, pulling up a stool to sit at the foot of the bed. “Have it your way, then,” he says dourly, fixing his spectacles on the edge of his nose. “But I’m not treating you if you pass out.”

* * *

It’s been seven hours, and the sun has long crested the horizon. Barnum and W.D. sit with Taylor in the dining car, the remains of their night snacks strewing the table. None of them feels hungry.

When they removed Taylor from his mother’s side, the boy pitched a fit that lasted almost an hour. Barnum’s ears are still ringing from his screams. Taylor could articulate no words other than _balloon_ and _Snark_ , neither of which was helpful. Now he’s quiet, too quiet; he stands on the seat to look out the window, his thumb jammed solidly in his mouth.

“What do you see, Toro?” Barnum rubs his back lightly, one of the only forms of contact he can get away with. He’s a tactile man, for better or worse.

Taylor sucks his thumb in silence, his eyes wide and haunted. Barnum sighs and turns back to W.D. “Well,” he says, “I guess we might as well eat a proper breakfast.”

Neither of them moves.

“That doctor better not hurt her.” W.D. scratches at a dent on the table with his fingernail. “If she wasn’t in labour, I’d throw him out on his ear.”

“You’d have lots of help, trust me.”

“What if he reports to the constable? Phillip might get arrested.”

“They can’t do that,” Barnum says, but inwardly he’s not so sure. Normally Phillip and Anne fly under the radar in states with anti-miscegenation laws, but the current situation makes that virtually impossible. “The important thing is that Anne delivers safely and we get the hell out of here.”

“Mama’s having trouble.” Taylor says this around his thumb, his eyes never leaving the window. “The Snark is hungry.”

“Taylor, listen, buddy.” W.D. speaks with weary love to his nephew. “There’s no such thing as Snarks. Okay? It’s just a poem some white guy wrote to be cute. So don’t worry about it.”

Taylor stares unblinkingly out at the field.

“Come here, Toro.” Barnum pats the seat next to him. Reluctantly, Taylor slides down, his book clutched under his arm. “What page are you on?”

Finally slipping his thumb out of his mouth, Taylor lays his book on the table and opens it. A folded piece of paper falls out. Barnum catches it and unfolds it. “Hey, look at this,” he says, putting on a cheerful show. “Did you draw this?”

Taylor doesn’t look at it. “Yes,” he says unhappily.

Barnum studies the picture of the red balloon floating near the fence. “Is this the balloon you said you saw our first morning here?” he asks, and a little shiver travels up his spine. The eyeless grin on the balloon, drawn with black crayon, is repulsive. “The one by the fence?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“And this hair.” Barnum points at the orange tuft sticking out from one side of the balloon. It’s surprisingly realistic compared to the rest of the drawing. “Whose hair is that?”

Taylor rocks on the bench, his vague, off-centre gaze troubled. “The Snark,” he says softly.

“The Snark is behind the balloon?”

“Yes, Papa.”

Barnum looks at it. “You drew its hair really well,” he says.

"No."

“Sure you did, look how good it is."

Taylor looks at him, his eyes focused on the point right between and above his eyes. “I didn’t draw the hair,” he whispers. “The Snark did.”

* * *

It’s Sunday, and when Anne shows no signs of imminently birthing the baby, Doctor Michaels excuses himself to get ready for church. “Should she come to the point,” he says, shrugging on his coat, “send for me. Other than that, settle in. She won’t be delivering anytime soon.”

Phillip sits next to the bed holding Anne’s hand as the contractions come and go, come and go. “That doctor thinks I’m going to die,” she whispers, her face a sweaty mask. “Doesn’t he?”

“That doctor is one of the most ignorant human beings I’ve ever met.” Phillip doesn’t add that moral ignorance makes little difference to professional qualifications. “Try to save your strength, Anne.”

As they wait in silence, church bells begin to toll. “I wish I could go to church,” Anne murmurs. “Will you sing some hymns for me, Phillip? If I don’t make it through this, I want to go to God with beauty in my soul.”

So he sings everything he knows until his voice is cracked and hoarse, while his wife strains and pants on the bed.

Various Oddities take turns sitting with Anne as the day peels away. Charity is never far from the railcar, and in the worst moments she always seems to be there. Barnum periodically pulls Phillip away to feed him and push mugs of hot coffee into his hand. “You need it,” he says firmly when Phillip utters the token protests. “You can’t make it on adrenaline alone.”

W.D. is struggling, that much is plain to see. Anne is all the family he has in the world. Sometimes he and Phillip end up at the same table in the dining car with identical mugs of fresh coffee, sharing their love for Anne in silence.

Around the eighteenth hour, as the sun is setting, Michaels visits again. “Still not close,” he says after he checks Anne. “She’ll be labouring all night.”

“Why is it taking so long?” Anne whispers as Charity wipes her forehead with a cool cloth.

“What was her first labour like?” Michaels asks Phillip.

“It was pretty quick,” Phillip says, glancing at Anne. “Five hours and Taylor was out.”

“Hm. And he was on time, was he?”

“No, he was premature by almost three weeks.”

Michaels abruptly covers Anne’s legs with the sheet again. “Accounts for it,” he says.

Phillip waits, but Michaels doesn’t elaborate. “Excuse me, it accounts for what?”

“Your son’s mental retardation.” Michaels washes his hands with brusque motions in a basin on the nightstand. “He’s been reading since he was two, you say, and he has excellent comprehension and memory, but I’ve been watching him. He doesn’t make eye contact, he hardly talks – and when he does, it’s in a monotone. He might as well be a robot, for all his empathetic feeling. You may prefer to delude yourself, but any professional will tell you the same: that boy is incapable of experiencing love.”

“You’re a liar!” Anne’s voice rising, hectoring and thin, from the bed, as Phillip stands by in stunned silence. “You lie!”

“This is not uncommon with mixed marriages.” Michaels dries his hand on a towel. “The babies rarely turn out as they should. Mulattos are usually sterile, Missus Bailey. It’s a small miracle you’re able to conceive at all.”

“That’s not true,” Anne says, crying. Charity shushes her, eyes blazing furiously. “There’s nothing wrong with me, and there’s nothing wrong with my boy.”

“For God’s sake, man,” Phillip manages to say. Michaels’ words are too massive to sink in; they settle over him, a ponderous weight. “Even if you believe that bullshit, why do you have to say it?”

“To prepare you. The baby may well have similar mental deformities. Or physical ones, for that matter. There’s a reason mixed marriages are proscribed. They…”

“Don’t say another word.” Charity rises from the edge of the bed. She urges Michaels backward with a hand on his chest. “Out. We’ll call for you when she’s ready to deliver.”

“If it’s during the night, don’t bother to wake me up.” Michaels looks at her with cool contempt. “In the morning, you may find me at my office.”

“Out,” Charity orders, and he leaves.

* * *

Around three o’clock in the morning, Charity accompanies Angus and the workhorses to fetch more water. The temperature is near freezing and the wind is up again; a light drizzle completes the misery. She’s so tired she’s stumbling, and Angus silently puts his muscled arm around her waist, his brow furrowed with concern. “Thank you,” she whispers. Barnum and several Oddities tried to talk her out of going, but she needs to get out of the boxcar for a while. The sight of Anne struggling to birth her child is breaking Charity’s heart and will by slow degrees.

When they arrive at the nearby well they’ve been using, Angus begins the arduous task of drawing water. Charity helps him turn the crank – the Strongman hardly needs her aid, but she needs to warm up. In the light of their single lantern, they fill their pails using the well bucket and line them up on the horse-drawn sledge.

Charity is reaching for the well bucket for the final time, her hands stiff with cold, when she sees something move in the well.

She’s never liked wells. As a child, she played a popular game called “Witch in the Well” with the neighbourhood kids. The “witch” would wait near the well while the other children ventured as close as they dared. Then the “witch” would jump out with a scream and chase them until one of them was caught.

Drawn against her will, Charity leans closer while Angus puffs and cranks. As the full bucket gradually ascends on its rope through the inky darkness, a decrepit hand slowly reaches out of the shadows. Frozen with horror, Charity watches as another hand emerges, clinging to the uneven stone with dirty fingernails. Two orange gleams flicker into existence.

“Charity.” The whisper rebounds off the mossy walls, magnified in the depths. “We’re down here.”

She tries to scream. Nothing comes out. The hands reach and grasp, climbing the stones like massive spiders, as the orange gleams dance wickedly in the blackness. “We all float,” comes the cracked whisper, and then a high, childish giggle. “Come play with us. You’ll float too.”

His back turned to her, Angus obliviously continues to raise the bucket. Two filthy, skinny arms emerge from the darkness, and then, without warning, a face juts into view. Two orange eyes burn like devilish candles, framed by a warty mask. The wrinkled skin oozes pus from several fissures around a malevolent grin, showing off teeth as broken and sharp as the shattered remains of a fence. “I'm the witch in the well,” the creature hisses, reaching for Charity’s hand. Bizarrely, a clownish orange pompom dangles from its middle finger, jouncing with menacing glee. “And…I’ve…got you!”

With a scream that seems to rip out her throat, Charity wrenches her hands off the well’s edge and falls backward, hitting the dead grass with a thump.

“Charity!” Angus releases the crank, and the bucket plummets back down into the well. He drops to one knee beside her, his rough face drawn with anxiety. “Are you all right?”

She’s shocked to find that she’s crying. She prides herself on her level head, on her ability to roll with whatever her husband dredges up from his infinite store of creativity. But now she’s shaking, cold and exhausted and terrified, shocked beyond recollection of herself.

 _It almost_ touched _me._

“I saw, I saw…” She sips at the air, closing her eyes against the sight of the well. “I thought I saw something in the well.”

“Aw, Missus Barnum,” he says, looking uncomfortable. They all call her Charity until the rare moment when one of them has to disagree with her; then the respectful _Missus Barnum_ re-emerges, as if to make up for it. “It must be the stress. Even if an animal could live down there, it’s too dark to see anything.”

“You’re right, of course,” she says, thinking, _Not an animal, it wasn’t an animal._ “I’m sorry, Angus. I made you drop the bucket.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Angus assures her quickly. “It’s good exercise.” He helps her to her feet. “Would it make you feel better if I took a look?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Charity knows full well that, as a female, she won’t be taken seriously about such things, any more than she would take Caroline or Helen seriously if they said they saw a ghost. Like Angus, she would be kind and reassuring, but firm about the nonexistence of such phenomena. “I just got a fright. Here, I’ll help you raise the bucket again.”

As she leans over to take her side of the crank, she chances a quick look down into the well. But of course it’s empty, as she knew it would be.

* * *

In the grey dawn of Monday morning, Sid Henson comes to them, his hat in his hands. He speaks in low tones as Oddities crane their heads out of windows and stand in mute vigil in front of the Bailey boxcar. His face is somber. There’s been an accident with the shipment of boiler parts, and they won’t send another for at least five days. Until then, there is nothing they can do but wait.

“Anne is in trouble.” Phillip speaks dully, his terror whittled down by a long night to listless scraps. Before him, Anne has sunk exhaustedly into the pillows. “We need to find a proper hospital. We can’t be stalled here.”

Barnum stands in the doorway, hunched like a tired workhorse. “I know, Phillip.”

“P.T., please get us out of here. Please don’t let me lose my Anne.”

Barnum’s mouth sags like a leaden weight. Suddenly he looks much older than his forty-nine years. “I’ll do my best, son,” he murmurs. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, so, it was quite normal in this time period to lose your wife in childbirth, or to have stillbirths in your family. Not saying it's inevitable, just saying thank God for modern medicine improving things. Also, "Witch in the Well" was an actual Victorian child's game that sounds unbearably creepy. ALSO also, Maine did not repeal its anti-miscegenation laws (laws against mixed marriages) until 1883, and this story takes place in 1877.
> 
> My apologies for the cliffhanger and the gratuitous historical notes. :D Next chapter up Monday Oct. 26!


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anne and Phillip struggle. Vague, but true.

**Chapter 7**

By noon on Monday, Anne has been in labour for thirty-five hours. Every face around the circus is sombre, every conversation halting. Jacks does her best to carry on with morning lessons as usual, but the children find it hard to concentrate. To make things worse, word has now gone around that the town’s Methodist lay preacher, Henry Furbisher, spent the whole service yesterday railing against them. The mood is grim, to say the least.

“Caroline.” Jacks stops her as she prepares to follow the stream of kids outside with Eli and Constantine. “Stay a moment, please.”

Dully, Caroline takes a seat near the front. “I’m sorry, Jacks,” she says, her eyes downcast. “I couldn’t focus today.”

“You’re not the only one.” Jacks looks down at her. “I’m sorry. I know how much you love Anne.”

Caroline nods.

“Just because the doctor is pessimistic doesn’t mean there’s no hope,” Jacks goes on. “Anne may well pull through this.”

“And what if she doesn’t? What if we lose her and Phillip has to raise two children by himself?”

“The good thing about the circus,” Jacks says, clasping her hands at her waist, “is that no one is ever really alone. It’s the only benefit I see in it, to be frank. Phillip would be a single father only in the strictest sense of the word.”

“But Anne is his life!”

“Caroline, a life is much greater than any single person. Anne is the most _important_ part of his life, perhaps, but many other things are of immense importance to him. Taylor, for one, and the new baby, and your father, and you and Helen and Charity, and his friends, and his work…He is a very fulfilled man, one of the happiest men alive.”

“Anne can’t die,” Caroline says, and she has to bite her lip to keep in the tears. “It’s not fair.”

“Fair, well.” Jacks unclasps her hands and turns away. “No one ever promised life would be fair.”

Caroline looks at this young woman sorting through homework assignments, a woman who was abandoned by her husband and deprived of her job and used as a sex worker, all because her daughter’s physical condition was considered repulsive. “It’s awful,” Caroline says, choking on the words. “It’s awful that no one ever promised that.”

Jacks looks up, and Caroline is shocked to see tears in her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “It is awful.”

* * *

Lunch is a bleak affair. Constantine and Eli take the children back to the Barrens to play, but the weather is wet and chilly and no one has much fun. Afterward, Caroline asks Constantine to walk her to the big top where several performers are beginning their usual afternoon rehearsals for a show that won’t go on. Under the vast pinstriped canvas, the mood is listless.

Caroline changes into her snowy practice leotard in the women’s changing area, winding strips of cloth around her bare feet for grip. Without regular ballet practices, she’s been maintaining her strength and flexibility with the trapeze equipment. W.D. and Anne would normally be here to spot and tutor her, but today she’s alone.

She catches sight of her reflection in a mirror and pauses. The leotard and tights show off the ropes of lean female muscle in her thighs and calves, her flat belly, her sinewy arms. She should be proud; she’s worked hard to stay in shape, and it shows. But today she feels nothing. She would trade her whole dancing career for Anne to be well, but she has no career left to trade. _Should have wished for Anne in that damn well_ , she thinks, and turns away from herself.

She enters the main ring, chalking her hands as she goes. There isn’t much actual practicing going on. Lettie, Charles, and the jugglers stand talking in low voices in one of the side rings; several acrobats half-heartedly go through a routine in another. Oddities dot the stands in small groups, watching without much interest. To one side, the band sounds less like a musical triumph and more like a group of six-year-olds playing together for the first time.

After a thorough stretch, Caroline unties one of the lyra ropes from a post. When the hoop is at the right height, she ties it off again. Tears fill her eyes, and she brushes them away angrily. Distraction is a dangerous thing for an acrobat. Slipping her body through the lyra hoop, she begins her flexibility exercises.

The band finally gives up. Out of the corner of her eye, Caroline sees the members begin to disperse. Closing her eyes, Caroline arches back through the hoop until her head brushes the ground. Beyond her control, two tears slip into her hairline. “God, please don’t let her die,” she whispers.

From the sidelines, a lingering violinist begins to play. The music is agile and haunting, coaxing and consoling. It runs through Caroline’s veins like blood, and she moves with it unapologetically. But these are not the prim motions of her ballet performances. This is desperation, desire, defiance. Heedless of the spectators, she dances with all the force of her grief, a wild nymph, a contortionist in rapid motion.

She mimics Phillip’s empty arms with her own, and the music swells to fill them. She weeps over a stillborn baby, cradling its downy head in the crook of her elbow, imagining the limp weight against her breasts. She mimes Anne lying in the throes of agony and fever, grasping for the life that flits just out of her reach. And, as the music begins to die, her body yearns toward the image of Anne alive and well, suckling her newborn baby. _Praying_ the idea, _willing_ it.

With a last long, quavering note, the violin hushes.

“What’s it called?”

Frozen in a final pose, Caroline looks up. Every eye in the big top is fastened on her. “I’m sorry, what’s what called?” she asks Charles breathlessly.

Charles crosses his arms. Above him, Lettie wipes away tears. “Your act,” he says simply.

"I don't have an act," Caroline says automatically.

Charles grins. "Yeah," he says. "That's what they all say."

* * *

Thirty-eight hours into her labour, Anne doesn’t have strength left to cry out. Phillip grips her hand too tight as Benny perches on the stool, encouraging her with his hands poised. Michaels has been sent for, but he won’t come in time. Part of Phillip resents this. Part of him is thankful.

He does almost pass out, as it happens. He wasn’t raised to believe that men should be present for the birth of their children, but Barnum was present for his, so Phillip decided to try it. After Taylor, he swore never again. But now he’s too terrified to leave, terrified that they will bring him the news of his baby’s birth and his wife’s death at the same time.

“Almost there,” Benny announces, his ruddy face bent over the half-emerged baby. “One more big one and…Hey, here she is! Here _she_ is! Good job, Anne.”

Anne collapses back with a huff of breath. For an awful moment Phillip thinks it is her last; then her chest shudders upward. “Is she alive?” she whispers just above silence.

“Alive and kicking.” Benny hands the baby to Charity and deftly cuts the umbilical cord. “Now let’s see if we can get her to give a good scream.”

“Just like a baby elephant, huh, Benny?” Phillip jokes lamely, laying his head next to Anne. Tears run freely down his cheeks onto the pillow.

“Just like,” the vet agrees. “Except much prettier. Whoopsie!” He takes the baby again and flips her over in one large hand. “Come on, sweetheart, I know you’ve got a good set of lungs in there,” he says, giving her back a series of smart slaps. “Lemme hear your singing voice.”

Anne moves her hand to the neck of her nightdress, but it immediately flops back down. “I need to feed her,” she whispers to Phillip.

At that moment the child gives a lusty cry. Phillip’s heart responds with a twist of love so sharp it’s painful. “Perfect,” Benny says satisfactorily, and releases the baby into Charity’s hands. “Now back to you, Anne my love. There’s too much bleeding here.”

“I need to feed her.”

“That you do. But while we’re taking care of you, I think cow’s milk will be sufficient.”

“I want to feed my baby,” Anne says loudly.

Benny takes one look at her haggard, sweaty face and nods, motioning to Charity. “I think perhaps we can let you do that,” he says quietly, shooting Phillip an anxious look. “Heaven knows you’ve waited for her long enough.”

Phillip helps Anne cradle their girl, unbuttoning her nightdress for her as Charity tucks the blanket around the little limbs. “I’m not doing this again,” he murmurs as Anne encourages the tiny red mouth to latch. “I’m serious, Anne. This is the last time I watch you give birth.”

“Thank you for staying.” Exhausted, Anne lets him brace her arms around their baby. “I needed you.”

And of course he will be there for her again if God grants him the chance. “I forgot how small newborns are,” he whispers as the lips finally latch and begin to suckle. “I’m afraid to touch her.”

Between Anne’s legs, Benny is arranging cloths in an effort to staunch the flow of blood. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to,” she whispers back, resting her head against Phillip’s shoulder. She’s shockingly pale now that the strain of birth is over; she’s almost as white as he is. “My sweet little Josephine.”

“We should let Taylor meet her.”

“Not until that doctor is gone.”

“Anne…”

“I don’t care if I never get to see him meet her,” Anne says sharply, her lips trembling. “I don’t want my boy hearin’ the kinds of things that doctor has to say. He’s vile, Phillip. Don’t let Taylor come in here.”

“Okay, shh, we’ll wait.” Phillip meets Charity’s eyes; his fear is reflected there. “We’ll wait. Anything you want, just hold on.”

* * *

By the time Michaels arrives, Anne is barely clinging to consciousness. Charity has taken Josephine out of Anne’s unresisting arms and is feeding her with the bottle of milk Lettie fetched. “Oh, my sweet baby,” Lettie murmurs, stroking Anne’s hair. “Don’t leave us, Anne.”

“There’s a lot of bleeding.” Michaels works with calculated efficiency. “Far too much.”

“Has it slowed at all?” Phillip asks hoarsely. Anne is limp in his arms; behind him, Barnum stands silently with his hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve staunched it a little, but she’s already weakened. She’ll be ill if she lives.” Michaels’ hands come into view briefly. Phillip’s gorge rises at their slick crimson masks. “She needs a hospital, not a circus railcar.”

“Where’s the nearest one?” Barnum inserts. His hand clenches reflexively on Phillip’s shoulder.

“Bangor.” Michaels gives him a sour look. “Almost thirty miles. That’s a long day’s journey by carriage, and there’s virtually nothing between here and there.”

“There’s a road. That’s usually enough.”

“Don’t be stupid. Bad weather’s starting to set in, and it’s not a good road. At least here she has access to a doctor.”

“Not a good road? What does that mean?”

“Why do you think your boiler parts didn’t get through?” Michaels pulls the sheet down over Anne’s legs. “It’s rough on carriages and horses, and passengers too. And there are animals prowling around. Forest creeps close. Things happen. I wouldn’t risk it with a dying woman.”

For the first time since meeting him, Phillip thinks Michaels might actually be acting out of genuine concern. It’s hard to believe, but something in his eyes and voice betrays more than just contempt. Something like fear. “Then what do we do?” he asks.

“Sit tight. Wait it out. Who knows, you might get lucky.”

“We make our own luck,” Barnum says, but the declaration falls flat, like the sound of a shout from a filled grave.

* * *

Later that evening, Phillip and Taylor move into an empty car with a single bed and a washbasin, leaving their family boxcar for Anne’s recovery room. Charity will stay there for the night; after hugging her and kissing Anne’s pale brow, Barnum retreats to the dining car to get some food for his partner.

As he approaches the boxcar, he sees Phillip standing inside. He holds his baby before him in both hands like a treasure. She’s tightly swaddled. Through the closed window, Barnum can hear her plaintive crying and Phillip’s soft words.

“Shh, hush now.” Barnum watches Phillip lightly bounce Josephine, his face turned to the ceiling. His eyes are closed. “Hush baby girl, your daddy loves you. Hush and don’t cry.”

Barnum knocks on the door, his heart heavy. “Come in,” Phillip calls after a pause.

Barnum slides the door open to see Taylor sitting on the floor, carefully watching the fresh bottle of milk heating on the coal-filled bedwarmer. The railcar is chilly. “I brought you some food,” Barnum says, laying it next to the washbasin. “How is she?”

“Fussy.” Phillip looks at him with eyes red from exhaustion. “Taylor’s being a good little helper, though, aren’t you, buddy?”

Taylor doesn’t take his eyes off the bottle of milk. “Josie needs milk,” he says matter-of-factly. “And a diaper.”

“Yeah, my eyes are watering.” Phillip nods at the pile of blankets in one corner. “P.T., would you mind?”

Barnum roots around until he finds one of Taylor’s old diapers, scrubbed clean and neatly folded. “I hope you have a few of these on hand,” he says as Phillip lays Josephine gently on the table. “The cloth feels worn. You should have just bought new ones. You can afford it.”

“I know, but Anne is a spendthrift.” Phillip unfolds the diaper and sizes up his daughter critically. He hesitates, then unwraps her to expose the mess. “Oh, shit,” he says wearily. “I’m going to need more water.”

“I’ll get some.”

“P.T., you don’t have to…”

“Stop that. I’ll be back in ten.”

By the time he gets back with two buckets of water, Phillip has used the washbasin to clean Josephine’s mess. He stands now as if frozen, staring at the diaper in his hands, his mouth tight and trembling. “I’m really bad at this,” he croaks. “Anne’s…Anne’s much better…”

His heart aching, Barnum pushes Phillip’s hands away; unprotesting, they drop to his sides. “Josephine, my darling,” Barnum croons softly, wrapping the cotton diaper with expert motions, “I caught you a starling, for the starling’s little song will cheer your heart along. But much to my sorrow, it will fly away tomorrow. So don’t leave me Josephine, Josephine my darling.”

Phillip watches Barnum finish wrapping up the diaper. “I’ve never heard that,” he says. “Did you make that up?”

“Sure did. Mind like a dervish.” Barnum holds the diaper in place. “Do you have pins?”

Phillip sheepishly produces two of Anne’s hairpins. Barnum smiles at him. “You boy,” he says fondly. “You’ll have to buy Anne new ones.”

“They were all I could find.” Phillip watches as Barnum’s rough hands carefully pin the diaper in place. “I bought a couple of those diapers with the ties just to try them, but I don’t know where Anne…”

“It’s okay, Phillip,” Barnum says as tears glint in Phillip’s eyes. “She’s going to be okay, and so are you.”

“Sure.” Phillip picks up Josephine and cradles her, sitting on the edge of the bed. His face is drawn. “We’ll all be fine, everything’s going to be fine. Taylor, can you bring me the milk please? Use the cloth to pick it up.”

Taylor obeys, assiduously balancing the glass milk bottle as he brings it to his father. “Drink your milk, Josie,” the boy instructs seriously as Phillip fumbles the rubber nipple over the top. “I’ll watch out for the Snark.”

“Taylor is on Snark patrol.” As Taylor clambers onto the bed to look out the window, Phillip tests the milk on his hand. Satisfied, he tips the nipple at Josephine’s mouth. “And I don’t care what Isabella Beeton says, I’m not using those new bottles with the rubber tubing. I don’t trust them.”

“Charity bought that book when it came out fifteen years ago. _Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management_. Good _Lord_.” Barnum rolls his eyes. “I threw it away after the first month. It was making her crazy.”

“I think buying that book would be like putting Anne back into slavery.” Phillip wipes his damp cheek with his shoulder as he balances Josie and the bottle. “Maybe it’s a good thing we’re not doing shows at the moment. I couldn’t help you very much.”

“And I wouldn’t expect you to. I’m not _that_ old, I can still manage a show by myself.” Trying to speak lightly, Barnum watches Phillip and his two children. Suddenly he has a flash of himself as a younger man, trying to help Charity in the days after his daughters were born. He was so green, so _bad_ at everything. More than that, he missed Charity being at his side, her warm presence, something as simple as catching an unexpected whiff of her scent. “You know what, I’ll grab a blanket and a pillow,” he says abruptly. “You’re not doing this alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“What does it sound like? I’m sleeping here tonight.”

“You can’t,” Phillip says, genuinely shocked. It’s always odd to see that emotion in him after years at the circus, but now and then it still crops up. “There’s only one bed, and Josie will probably cry during the night.”

“Exactly. You’re going to need some help.” They may be equal partners, but Barnum is not above strong-arming Phillip in moments of crisis. “And I don’t mind sleeping on the floor. I’ve slept in far worse places.”

“P.T.” Phillip speaks softly to Josephine’s little head, avoiding Barnum’s gaze. “You don’t have to do this for us.”

“My last two children were stillborn, Phillip. The twins. And I was so worried for Charity after the birth that I thought I’d lose my mind. So don’t act like I don’t get it. I get it, Phillip.”

“I know you do.” Phillip finally smiles up at him raggedly. “Thank you. I accept.”

“Like you had a choice.” Barnum slides open the door again, hunching his shoulders against the wind. “I’ll bring another bedwarmer; it’s fricking cold in here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Isabella Beeton was a real woman who wrote "Mrs. Beeton's Household Management" in 1861, a book on managing a family and house for Victorian woman. A real bestseller. The bottle with the rubber tubing that Phillip mentions was an invention she recommended that allowed children to suck milk out of a bottle on their own. Unfortunately, it was also famous for breeding dangerous bacteria, as the bottles were difficult to wash. To make things worse, Beeton recommended the nipples and bottles only be washed once every two or three WEEKS! They came to be known as "murder bottles" for the number of child fatalities they caused.
> 
> I love you guys, you're great! Next chapter up Monday Nov. 2!


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some pieces finally begin to fall into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Some disturbing and racist language in the beginning.

**Chapter 8**

_For Anne, the sound of slavery will always be subtle, subdued. It will always be the clink of china teacups on silver serving trays, the drowsy rustle of skirts on a sweltering Georgia evening, the creak of Gramma Ada’s ancient rocking chair. Anne is nine years old, Master Hayley’s favourite household slave, and also his illegitimate daughter. No one dares speak of that. It is the secret everyone knows._

Gramma Ada _is what all the slaves call Adelia, Master Hayley’s aging mother. Not to her face; they’re not stupid. She lives on the plantation, and with the help of her daughter-in-law rules the house with an iron fist. When she’s not creaking away in the corner with her tea, that is._

_The shadows have grown long in the darkening sitting room as Anne pours a cup of weak Earl Grey by lamplight, adding one and a half lumps of sugar without stirring. The formula is always the same, learned under the instruction of a birch switch. Sweating under her cotton shift, she carefully balances the cup and saucer in her small hands and carries it over._

_Tonight, though Anne can think of nothing she’s done wrong, Gramma Ada’s glare is a hot poker. Her eyes, once a lovely shade of green, are ghostly with cataracts. Anne lays the tea down on the side table and rearranges the lace doily to one side just the way her mistress likes it. As she does so, Gramma Ada leans over and whispers, “You shitty little half-breed.”_

_Anne’s eyes widen. Her hands freeze on the doily. It’s no secret that Gramma Ada despises her, resenting the proof of her son’s indiscretion, but never has she heard the proper Southern matron utter such language. She chances a quick look around. They’re alone. Her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth, Anne backs up a cautious step. Any moment now, Gramma Ada will call for Mistress Hayley, and the switching will begin._

_But it doesn’t happen. Gramma Ada’s thick white brows draw down, shading her feverish eyes as she looks at Anne. “Come here,” she hisses, pinching at the air with one spindly hand. Terrified, Anne has no choice but to obey. “Shitty little slave-child. Burn in hell. Burn, burn.”_

_Standing helplessly with their knees knocking together, Anne is forced to bend over as the old lady grips the front of her dress. Stale breath washes over her sweat-shiny face. “If you ever have children,” Gramma Ada rasps at her, and Anne suddenly becomes sure that she’s either drunk or ill, “I will come for them as you sleep. I’ll boil a big pot of water and dunk them in one by one – dunk, dunk, dunk! And then I’ll fry them up like chicken and eat them. No children for the little disgrace. No children for the shitty little nothing.”_

_Tears of terror stand in Anne’s eyes; she has to brace her hands on the arms of the rocker to keep from falling over. “Please, ma’am,” she manages to say. “Please, I’m sorry. Please, I’m sorry.”_

_“Eat them,” Gramma Ada repeats satisfactorily, releasing Anne’s dress. Anne stumbles in her haste to back up. “Eat them all.” Her face twists, and she clutches at her chest with spidery hands, her wrinkled features crumpling. Two hoarse gasps for air, and she collapses back, her jaw slack, her gaze fixed on Anne. Anne stares at the bosom of Gramma Ada’s white dress, but it doesn’t move. It never will again._

_Turning, Anne runs for the butler, screaming as she goes. And swears to herself that she will never, ever speak of Gramma Ada’s last words._

Some memories never fade, but become the tapestry of dreams, woven in subtle shades of meaning. Anne stirs in the night from her uneasy slumber, the fragments of Gramma Ada swirling in her subconscious, to the feeling of a hand on her foot. Her first thought is that Charity is checking for more blood. But the hand never moves. After several minutes of stillness and silence, Anne weakly turns her head. Charity is lying next to her in the bed, asleep with her face turned to the wall.

Anne’s whole body is limp and numb, the simple act of breathing wearisome. But even more than that, she is terrified to look at the foot of the bed. That hand is bony and cold, the nails clawed under the blankets, the touch light yet implacable.

Anne opens her mouth to whisper for Charity, but at the last second she rethinks it. What if Charity turns into something awful? What if she rolls over at Anne’s call and she’s a grinning corpse with broken teeth and sagging flesh? What if, what if, what if…None of these conjectures would matter – Anne is just lucid enough to know that she isn’t really lucid – if not for that hand on her foot.

That dead hand.

“Annabelle.” Gramma Ada’s voice speaks, as hoarse and malevolent as it was eighteen years ago. “I’m down here.”

Anne’s blood-depleted body shivers. She tries to say Charity’s name, but nothing makes it past her dry lips. With an effort that feels far beyond her, she manages to turn her head, casting her gaze to the foot of the bed.

Gramma Ada’s face looks back at her over the blankets. Her mouth sags open to reveal blackened teeth and wormy gums. Her hair has shriveled to nothing; her face is bagged with innumerable wrinkles. Her eyes are jet-black. Around her neck is the ruff of a clown costume.

“Shitty little slut.” Gramma Ada’s charcoal tongue writhes behind her teeth. “Went and had children against gramma’s wishes.”

Anne’s hand tries listlessly to jostle Charity’s back. It tangles in the sheets and fails.

“Boil the water.” Gramma Ada’s eyes dance with orange sparks. “Eat them up.”

“No.” Anne’s voice is a mere rustle between her lips; she licks them with an effort, but the rest of her breath escapes her in a sigh. She’s too weak.

“No brown grandchildren for my son.” Gramma Ada’s hand caresses Anne’s foot; her sandpapery skin sends thrills of disgust through Anne’s belly. “Not even one. I’ll take them to play in my circus and they’ll _float_.”

Mustering her will, Anne forces as much breath into her lungs as she can, then expels it. The resulting scream is more like a peep. She tries it again, and this time the peep turns into a harsh croak. Her throat is so _dry_.

Slowly, Gramma Ada peels back the covers from Anne’s feet. Her black tongue lolls out, long and pointed. Anne tries to scream as the tip touches her foot, then licks up along the sole. It’s cold and slimy, like a marsh slug in September. It starts again at the bottom of her other foot, and this time her croak escalates into a short, shrill whistle.

Charity stirs. As Anne tries to muster another weak shriek, Charity rolls over, rubbing her eyes. Anne nearly cries at the sight of her beautiful familiar face. “Annie, my darling, what’s wrong?” Charity whispers, her speech slurred with sleep. “Are you okay?”

And just like that, Gramma Ada is gone. All except for the spittle drying on Anne’s feet.

* * *

It’s been a long night. Phillip sits at the bed table he’s turned into a desk, his knees jutting awkwardly to either side. Now and then he steals glances over his shoulder at Josephine. Barnum faithfully spelled him off during the night, feeding and changing his newborn daughter when the need arose. Now, the man is sprawled asleep in the bed Phillip vacated an hour ago. Taylor sleeps in the crook of one brawny arm, Josephine in another.

Phillip reluctantly turns away from the sight and back to the letter before him. _Dear Mother_ , it begins. _I thought you should know that your second grandchild, Josephine Marigold Bailey, was born last night._

He rubs his eyes. To say no more would be to acknowledge their estrangement, but he feels lost for words. He writes his mother now and then, stilted as it is, and now and then she responds. If his father knew, Phillip suspects that would be the end of the correspondence.

 _I’m afraid Anne is not doing well._ Phillip hesitates, then adds, _Perhaps one day you can meet Taylor and Josephine. Until then, I’ll keep you informed of Anne’s progress._

Behind him, Barnum stirs in the bed. “Hey, Grandpa,” Phillip says, trying for a light tone. “How’s your back after a whole night on the floor?”

“The name’s _Papa_ , and it’s ready to kill me, thank you very much.” There’s a long pause while Phillip’s pen scratches over the page. “When are you going to stop writing them?” Barnum finally asks, his voice husky with sleep and disapproval.

Phillip blinks, surprised. “How did you know?” he asks.

“I can always tell when you’re writing your parents. You roll your shoulders like you’re trying to work out a knot.”

“Well, I’m not writing my parents _,_ I’m writing my mother.” Phillip signs the letter and blows gently on the ink. “It wasn’t her idea to disown me,” he adds after a pause.

“I didn’t see her breaking her back to stop it, either.”

“Some battles are best fought subtly.” Phillip folds the letter in crisp thirds and slides it into the envelope. “You saw what happened to me when I tried to fight my father openly.” _Death Hands_. “She has even fewer options than I had.”

“Keep telling yourself that, kid. Forgiveness may be a virtue…”

“It is.”

“…but some people don’t deserve it.”

“Nobody deserves to be forgiven, P.T.” Phillip addresses the envelope. “If they did, they wouldn’t _need_ forgiveness. Without which, neither of us would have families.”

“Stop being right, it’s too early for that.” Barnum jiggles Taylor a little to rouse him, wisely refraining from doing the same with Josephine. “Your children are charming, Phillip, but seriously, tonight I’m moving a proper bed in here. I can’t sleep on the floor like I used to.”

“Has Charity often made you sleep on the floor?” Smiling at Barnum’s expression, Phillip reaches for Josephine, easing her into his arms. Dawn light warms her face as he cradles her, glowing on her creamy brown skin. Entranced despite his fatigue, he traces one cotton-soft cheek with his finger. “You’re so beautiful when you’re not screaming,” he murmurs. “Welcome to your first sunrise, Josie girl.”

“The first of many the two of you will see together.” Barnum swings his bare feet over the edge of the bed. Phillip winces in sympathy as he gingerly stretches his back. “Not a word, Phillip.”

“Wasn’t going to…”

“Yes you were.” Barnum smiles at him, patting Taylor’s back as the boy yawns against his shoulder. “And…I forgive you.”

* * *

Anne is listless and limp, able to raise only the weakest of smiles in response to Phillip’s kiss. “She has a fever,” Charity says quietly, watching as Phillip helps Anne hold Josephine. “And I’m afraid she may be delirious. Last night she woke me up saying that she saw her grandmother in the room.”

“Really?” Barnum surveys Anne, a sense of disquiet tugging at his mind. “She was probably just dreaming.”

“Probably.” Charity rubs her arms; tension has written itself into every line of her face. “But it was unsettling. She was so sure…she said something about her feet being licked.”

“ _Licked?_ ”

“Yes, I know it sounds weird. They were mostly dry when I touched them.”

“ _Mostly?_ ” Barnum echoes again.

“She was sweating from the fever,” Charity reasons. “That’s all.”

“Hey.” W.D. pokes his head in; he tries to smile for them. “How’s my baby sister?”

“Wanting to see you.” Charity shuffles aside; the boxcar is quickly becoming crowded. “How did you sleep?”

“Not so good.” W.D. kneels by Anne’s bed as Phillip shuffles over to make room. “Hey, Annie. How you doing?”

“W.D.” Her rasp is painful to hear. “I saw Gramma Ada.”

“Baby girl, she’s dead.” W.D. strokes her forehead. “You must have dreamed her.”

“No, she was here.” Anne’s eyes are puffy and red, but the expression in them is clear and earnest. “She licked my feet.”

W.D. blinks. “Why would she do that?” he asks after a perplexed silence.

“I think she wanted a taste.” Anne’s chest heaves with the effort of speaking. “She said she was going to boil and eat our children. She warned me she would, when I was a little girl.”

“Good Lord.” W.D. runs a hand down his drawn face. “Annie, you’re seeing things. Okay? You’re a little feverish. That’s all it is.”

“You believe me,” Anne whispers, her eyes widening. At her breast, Josephine nestles quietly. “You do. I see you do.”

W.D. takes her hand. “I believe you _think_ you saw something,” he says. “But it’s just because you’ve been through a lot.”

“What did you see?” Anne strains to sit up, and Phillip quickly takes Josephine from her in alarm. “What did you see last night, W.D.?”

“I didn’t see anything,” he snaps.

“Was it the dogs?” Anne flops back down to her pillow as W.D. restrains her, but her eyes burn like sickly candles. “Did you see the dogs?”

“I told you, I saw nothing.” But he doesn’t _look_ like he saw nothing; he looks shaken, found out. “Gramma Ada is long dead and she’s not going to eat our children. You’re safe.”

“She was wearing a clown ruff.” Anne’s voice sounds hectic, detached. “Her teeth were all black…her hand was cold…and the dogs had orange clown suit buttons for noses. Didn’t they?”

“We need to call for the doctor.” W.D. stands abruptly. “She’s sick.”

He hops down from the railcar. Barnum pursues him, grabbing at his arm. “I agree about the doctor,” he says as W.D. turns fiercely to face him. “Anne is obviously sick. But…” He hesitates. “W.D., _did_ you see something last night?”

“I told you, no,” W.D. says hotly. “How many times I gotta say it?”

“Are you sure? Because you don’t look sure.”

“I’m sure, dammit!”

They stare at each other, billows of warm white breath rising between them. “You’re lying,” Barnum says at last. “I know you are,” he interrupts W.D.’s rising objection, “because I saw something too.”

W.D.’s expression shutters. “When?” he asks cautiously; he’s probably afraid he’s about to be tricked.

“When the lion bit me. Just before, actually.” Barnum lets go of W.D.’s arm. “That was why I got startled. I saw the corpse of a man I used to know…and he was dressed like a clown.”

W.D. hugs himself against the cold. He looks lost, cut adrift without his sister. “You could just be making that up,” he says. “You do that a lot.”

“Yeah, I do. But not to you.” Barnum tucks his bare hands under his arms for warmth. His injured hand aches viciously. “Listen, maybe we are just seeing things. Maybe it’s just stress or something. But that’s three of us now: you, me, and Anne. And Taylor. Four.”

“And Caroline.” W.D.’s brow furrows. “She won’t admit to it, but something scared her in that creepy-ass house. I know it did.”

“Okay, so that’s five. Five that _we_ know about. What if we asked around? How many more would admit to similar experiences?”

“Fine, say other people are seeing things. What does that mean? That we’re all going crazy?”

Barnum doesn’t answer. Up and down the line of the train, Oddities are beginning the day’s work, or what’s left of it without a show. “First things first,” he says at last, turning back to W.D. “We send for Michaels on the run.”

“Second?”

“We start asking people if they’ve seen anything odd. I’ll start with Charity and Phillip; I wouldn’t put it past them to hold out on me. And then…”

He never gets to finish his sentence. A shout cuts him short, and he turns to see one of the workers pointing toward the Barrens. From the line of overgrown foliage, Helen is tearing toward him, her hair streaming behind her, and she’s screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was a little shorter, I had a hard week. I hope everyone had a great Hallowe'en!
> 
> Next update Monday Nov. 9!


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a gruesome discovery is made.

**Chapter 9**

Helen is still in her nightdress. Barnum barely has time to see this before she leaps at him, her eyes blown wide. He catches her in his arms, absorbing the blow with his legs braced. She clutches him with her arms and legs, sobbing incoherently into his shoulder.

“Go check for Lettie and Nora.” Barnum shoots this over Helen’s tangled hair at W.D. “And make sure Caroline is still there.”

Caroline and Helen bunk with Lettie and Nora, an arrangement that works well. As W.D. sprints off, Barnum shushes Helen under the sound of her wails. She’s cold and wet and reeking. Her body quivers.

“Phineas?” Charity steps out of the Bailey railcar. “Helen! Helen, what happened?”

“I don’t know.” Barnum cradles the back of Helen’s head; his heart thumps loudly in his chest. “She just ran out of the Barrens. She was alone.”

Several cars away, Lettie bursts out of her railcar, swathed in her housecoat. Her thick curls cascade, sleep-mussed, around her broad shoulders. “Helen!” she cries across the distance, hurrying forward; Nora and Caroline, similarly dressed, follow in her wake. “Oh, sweetheart, what happened?”

“I could ask the same of you.” Barnum’s jaw clenches as Helen continues to cry into his shoulder. “She was in the Barrens all alone. What the _hell_ , Lettie?”

Lettie draws up short. “We were still asleep,” she says, but her tone is too horrified to be defensive. “Barnum, we _never_ would have allowed this. She must have snuck out.”

Charity rubs Helen’s back with soothing murmurs. Helen’s feet are bare and filthy. “She smells like a sewer,” Barnum says with a grimace.

“We need to get her warm.” Charity takes charge, tugging her husband in the direction of their railcar. “Nora, please heat up some water for a bath. Lettie, we need some blankets.”

It’s well over an hour, after Helen has taken a bath and sits swathed in blankets in their railcar, that she finally calms down enough to speak. “What happened?” Charity asks for the hundredth time, smoothing Helen’s wet hair back from her face. They sit cuddled in a rocking chair. “Why were you in the Barrens all alone?”

“I didn’t mean to go.” Helen wipes her nose with the blanket. “I don’t even remember doing it.”

“Were you sleepwalking?”

“I guess so.” Helen looks at Barnum imploringly. “Please don’t be mad at Lettie and Nora. It wasn’t their fault.”

He knows that, and he’ll have to apologise to them later. “I’m not mad anymore,” Barnum assures her. “I know they would never put you in danger. I was just…scared.”

“Me too.” Helen trembles lightly in Charity’s arms. “I woke up in the Barrens. I didn’t know where I was, and I was so cold…”

“How long do you think you were out there?” Charity probes gently.

“I don’t know. I woke up in one of the big sewer pipes. I…” Helen starts crying again. “I saw a girl in there.”

Barnum’s brows draw together. “A girl?” he questions.

“She was dead.” Helen curls against her mother’s bosom, burying her face. “She was stinky and gross. I think something ate part of her.”

Beside him, Caroline shudders. Barnum puts his hand over hers. To wake up in the dim morning light all alone in a sewer pipe with a dead child nearby…No wonder Helen lost it. And suddenly he’s furious on her behalf, but there’s no one to be furious at. No one but a phantom.

“I started screaming.” Helen’s voice is muffled against Charity’s dress. “I couldn’t stop. But I couldn’t move, like I was paralysed. And then I heard…”

“What did you hear?” Charity strokes Helen’s damp locks as the girl falls silent. “What, honey?”

Sniffing, Helen says, “I heard a voice from the sewer. It said, ‘Hello, Helen. I’m Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Come on in and I’ll teach you how to float.’ And then…and then I ran.”

“Phineas,” Charity says hoarsely. “The girl in the sewer. You don’t think she could be…?”

“We’ll soon find out.” Abruptly, Barnum rises. “I’m calling for the constable.”

* * *

“Puerperal fever.” Doctor Michaels puts away his stethoscope. “Fever, chills, abdominal pain, rapid pulse…It’s early-onset, but the symptoms are unmistakable.”

Outside, Phillip can hear the faint sounds of the search party from town heading into the Barrens. It pales in importance next to the precious sound of Anne’s raspy breathing. “Will she die?” he manages to ask, grateful only he is present to hear the question answered.

“Yes.” Michaels snaps his bag shut. “That is, I would be very surprised if she didn’t. This is a common postpartum illness. Expect diarrhoea and vomiting as it progresses. She may also become delirious.”

It’s happened already; Anne has been constantly mumbling about Gramma Ada. “How long?” Phillip asks, his head in his hands.

“A few days, perhaps, or a couple of weeks. Here in Derry? The former. She might have a fighting chance in a proper hospital.” Michaels motions disgustedly around the confined railcar. “But this is no place for a lying-in.”

“Then we’ll get her to Bangor,” Phillip says promptly.

“You can try, but I’ve already told you that road is no good. A train is far from ideal, but it’s a sight better than a carriage. In her weakened condition, you could lose her on the way.” Michaels frowns critically at his patient. “I would bleed her – that’s the usual method – but she’s already lost too much blood.”

“Isn’t there anything else you can do?”

“I may not think much of your marriage, but I wouldn’t lose a patient if I could prevent it.” Michaels shrugs. “It’s in God’s hands now. For your part, I suggest you prepare for the worst.”

It’s an impossible demand. Phillip watches Michaels go, the chasm vast and black in his heart. He feels nothing but a dull, expanding ache. All he wanted was for his child to be born. Now, he wishes he could go back in time to when Anne was safely his.

“Phillip.” He turns at the breathy word. Anne’s face is plaster-pale, her body shuddering with chills. “Where are my babies?”

“I left them with Eli and Nala.” Phillip twines his hand with hers, marvelling as he always does at the slender strength of her fingers. He has a sudden flashback to the moment he woke in the hospital after the circus fire, and she was there, all tears and beauty and watchfulness. “I’m here, though. And I won’t leave you.”

She drifts back off into uneasy sleep, leaving him bowed over her hand.

* * *

Half an hour later, they bring the girl’s body out of the Barrens. Barnum turns his face away from the bloated and mangled features as Rudy Gainer silently carries his daughter away from the tree line. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I truly am.”

Gainer makes no reply. His features are set in stone.

“We need your partner to confirm that this is the girl he gave the ticket to.” Constable Fletcher watches the search party gather around Gainer and his lifeless daughter. “Just so we know for sure.”

“He’s with his wife.” Barnum also keeps an eye on Gainer’s massive form. He hasn’t forgotten the threat to his partner. “She’s had a difficult childbirth.”

“Well, I’m sorry for that, but we still need his confirmation. It won’t take long.”

Barnum goes to the Bailey railcar, where Phillip holds vigil over Anne. “Phil,” he says softly when Phillip doesn’t turn his head. “They found Tessa Gainer.”

Phillip just nods.

“She’s dead. The constable needs you to confirm she’s the one you gave the ticket to. Can you do that?”

“I can’t leave Anne.” Phillip is unshaven and dishevelled, speaking in a monotone. “She needs me.”

“I know. It’ll just be a second, then they’ll leave you alone.” Gently, Barnum urges Phillip to his feet with his hands. The man staggers a little, stiff from kneeling. “You need to take care of yourself, Phillip. You look like hell.”

“I need to take care of Anne first.” Phillip doesn’t meet his eyes; his own eyes are glazed over, shadowed by impending grief. “Let’s get this over with.”

The surest sign to Barnum that Phillip is slowly losing himself is that the man barely flinches at the sight of Tessa’s corpse. “That’s her,” he says. “I’m sorry, Gainer. If I’d known the ticket would get her in trouble, I never would have given it to her.”

Gainer refuses to look at him. “Go on, Fletcher,” he rumbles. “Do what you came here for.”

Barnum looks sharply at the constable. “What’s he talking about?” he demands.

Fletcher looks at Gainer, standing with the crowd of searchers, none of whom look friendly. “Can we talk in your office?” he asks in a low voice.

“Why?”

“I think it’s safer. I’m afraid…”

“You want to arrest me, don’t you?” Phillip interrupts.

Fletcher grimaces. “Tessa was found within a few hundred yards of your circus,” he begins.

“It’s a small town,” Barnum inserts angrily. “Everything’s within a few hundred yards of everything.”

“Bailey was the one to give out the ticket. He was the last adult confirmed to have seen her alive.” Fletcher keeps his voice low, but the waiting townsmen are listening like hawks. “I have to do something, Barnum. The mayor needs me to do something.”

“So you’re going to take it out on us, is that it?”

“I can’t go,” Phillip says. He looks so much older with the stubble darkening his jaw, with the shadows deepening under his eyes. “My wife is ill. She may die.”

“I’m sorry…” Fletcher begins.

“No, don’t say you’re sorry. You’re not. In fact, part of the reason you’re here is because of her, isn’t it? You want to arrest me for being with a black woman.”

“The matter’s come up,” Fletcher admits, and to his credit, he looks ashamed.

Phillip turns a bitter smile on Barnum. _I knew it_ , it says. _Same old bullshit world._ “We’ve been very quiet about it,” he says. “We’re certainly not hurting anyone.”

“No, you’re not,” Fletcher agrees. “And normally I wouldn’t make a fuss about what a bunch of circus freaks do with themselves. But…” He hesitates. “Do you see those big men over there?” he asks in a lower voice. “They’re all friends of Rudy Gainer. Lumberjacks, most of them. And they’re gunning for you. Truth be told, I think you’ll be safer in the clink. Your circus family would be safer with you away from them, too, for that matter. Things happen in Derry. Dangerous things.”

“So we’ve seen,” Barnum snaps.

“So what will it be?” Fletcher continues, undeterred. “You gonna come with me without a fuss, or do we need to tussle over it?”

“I vote for a tussle,” Barnum says. His good hand bunches into a fist. “You’re not taking my partner off to jail for something you have absolutely no proof of.”

The group of Derrymen shifts warningly. Fletcher reaches for the gun at his belt, his eyes flicking between them. “This could get ugly,” he cautions quietly. “Are you really prepared to risk your people to prevent one arrest?”

Barnum’s jaw tightens. It’s not in his nature to give up, especially when it comes to his family. And yet he’s keenly aware of the milling circus performers, of the children in their lessons not far away, of Charity and the girls in the neighbouring boxcar. “Then take me,” he offers. “This man needs to be with his wife.”

“I told you, Barnum, your partner’s the one riling up all the bad feeling in this town. Taking you would be no use whatsoever to…”

“Fine.” Phillip hunches his shoulders. “I’ll go.”

“Phil…” Barnum starts.

“No, shut up.” Phillip’s eyes are full of despair. “We’re not putting the whole circus in danger for my sake, or even for Anne’s. We can’t, P.T., I know that as well as you do. Look at those men,” he adds under his breath. “They’re ready for blood, and more than one of them has a gun.”

It’s true, and yet giving in is like swallowing broken glass. “Don’t be rough with him,” Barnum implores as Fletcher begins to cuff Phillip. “Remember he has a wife and two children. Keep him safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” Fletcher says as he finishes cinching the cuffs. The ratchet of metal sounds far too final.

“Watch out for Anne.” Phillip lets Fletcher tug him away. “I promised I wouldn’t leave her. Let her know I’ll be back, okay?”

The whole thing happens so quickly and so quietly that it’s only as Phillip passes by with Fletcher that performers starting crying out, bewildered and angry.

* * *

The afternoon doesn’t go well.

First Taylor has to be told that his daddy has been taken away; Barnum predictably takes that task on himself. Oddly, Taylor doesn’t have a meltdown. He listens to his papa explain in silence, then turns back to a sleeping Josephine and continues to rock her in her cradle. He refuses to be parted from her, insisting that he’s protecting her from the Snark. But he begins to sway back and forth in his chair, humming tunelessly to himself. It’s self-soothing behaviour. The refusal to engage anyone is more worrying than an outright tantrum.

From there, Barnum has to explain to the rest of the circus why Phillip was taken away in handcuffs. He dispatches O’Malley to ensure Phillip arrives at the jail safely, and then the rest of the Oddities and workers pack into the dining car. They’re much more vocal than Taylor about their worry. Charity is forced to watch helplessly as her husband is bombarded with questions that he can’t answer and concerns that he can’t assuage. Never since the Jenny Lind affair has she seen him so worn out and defeated.

Helen is made of tough stuff, but she’s badly shaken from her experience. She spends the afternoon and evening curled up with Caroline, playing cards and drawing. She’s inherited her father’s artistic ability, and now she appears to be designing a dress for her sister, a dress that looks suspiciously like a costume. Charity files the information away for the moment when she can properly investigate and leaves them in the care of Lettie and Nora.

She finds Barnum standing in front of the lion cages in the big top. His shoulders are bowed. She watches him watching Zeus and Elroy, wondering, as always, what’s going through his mind. She never knows. She thinks she should, that it’s a wife’s job to understand her husband, but then again no other woman was ever married to P.T. Barnum.

“They look so big.” His voice startles her. “Why didn’t I ever notice before how big they are?”

She comes up behind him, threads her arms around his middle. He clasps her hands with his own. The bandage on his wounded hand is rough against her skin. “You’re bigger,” she notes.

“I feel about the size of a gnat.” He sighs, his taut belly expanding briefly under her hands. “Chairy, they’re all looking for answers and I don’t have any.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. They’re terrified and they have every right to be. I’m their leader. I should be able to take care of them.”

“You will,” she murmurs between his shoulder blades. “You always do.”

“This is different. This isn’t just a matter of me making everybody feel good with a big speech. We’re in real danger here. Something…” Barnum stops, and she waits breathlessly for him to go on. “Chairy, something strange is going on in this town,” he says at last.

“I know,” she says simply.

“You do?” He sounds relieved. “Have you seen something odd?”

Taking a chance, she tells him about the witch in the well. “It said I would float,” she adds, her brow crinkling. “It was a strange thing, but those were its words.”

“Helen’s voice in the sewer said something similar.” Barnum turns to face her, settling his hands on her waist. “And it called itself _Pennywise the Dancing Clown_.”

“Could it be a prankster? Someone mocking the circus?”

“Could be. In which case Helen might have been sharing her sewer pipe with the town murderer.”

“Oh, don’t.” Charity lays her forehead on his broad chest. “I’ve been trying not to think about that all day.”

“Well, they didn’t find anything but the dead girl in there, thankfully. And listen, if he’d wanted to kill her, he had the opportunity. She was asleep, for God’s sake. Asleep in a sewer pipe.” Barnum rests his chin on top of her head; she cherishes the closeness. “I don’t remember her ever sleepwalking before.”

“No, she hasn’t. Caroline did a couple of times.”

“Mm.”

“Phin, what if she does it again tonight?”

“O’Malley put a padlock on the inside of the door. Helen won’t be able to open it without the key.”

“Good.”

Barnum strokes the back of her neck. His fingertips are rough-skinned but gentle, tender. She suddenly longs for their house in New York, where they could make love in a full-sized bed without fear of interruptions from the other performers. “We need to get out of here,” she murmurs. “This place…it’s poisonous. Can you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“Phin…” She hesitates, but this is P.T. Barnum; she can say anything to this particular man. “What if it’s not a prankster doing all these things?”

“You mean, what if Derry is haunted?”

It’s a startling idea, to think that an entire town could be haunted, but it’s exactly what she means. “Suppose it’s true?” she says, leaning back so she can look in his face. “Phin, I can’t imagine a prankster being able to shimmy down that well. And what you saw the night of the show…”

“Maybe that was what started it.” Barnum shrugs, but the offhand gesture can’t hide his insecurity. “Maybe I cursed us.”

“Don’t,” she implores again. “That’s not true.”

“Well, maybe I did. Or maybe…”

“What?” she asks when he doesn’t go on.

He laughs a little, nervously. “I just remembered,” he says. “The owner of that house was a clown.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments! Next chapter up Monday Nov. 16!
> 
> Note: Puerperal fever was very common for women after labour and had high mortality rates. Just another one of those things the Victorian era was not particularly well-equipped to deal with.


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Phillip is in jail and Barnum does some investigating.

**Chapter 10**

The next morning at sunrise, Barnum tacks up Copper and rides out alone. He skirts the town limits, heading west toward Red Henson’s little cottage. Passing by the spot where they were stalled gives him pause, and for a good five minutes he sits in the saddle looking at it as Copper blows and snorts.

“I need to talk to you,” he says when Red opens his front door. Behind him, Copper is secured to the porch fence. “It’s urgent.”

“Oh Lord.” Red leans with one gnarled hand against the doorframe, looking weary. “I’m too old for this.”

“For what?”

“For that look. That look that says you got questions I shouldn’t answer.” Red sighs. “Well, you better come in. I got some homemade beer you can take a shot at, if you’re not too fancy for Derry swill.”

“No sir.”

“You’ll regret that.” Red nods him in, and Barnum bucks his boots against the lintel before stepping over the worn welcome mat. “My innards don’t process nothin’ these days, and you can blame that on moonshine and too many pork rinds. Never mind your boots, son, I got no wife.”

The house is even smaller than it looks from the outside. Barnum, sensing a kindred spirit, tosses his hat casually down on the floor. “I used to live in a place like this as a kid,” he says, following Red’s limping steps into the tiny sitting room. “In size and looks, I mean. But it was in New York.”

“Then you ain’t lived in a place like this.” Red gives him a sly look as he proceeds into the kitchen, little more than a nook in the corner. “New York is full of shysters, which the woods ain’t. Derry, though…” He reaches into a crate and dexterously extracts six beers. “I hope you’re thirsty.”

Barnum has no intention of downing three beers before nine, but one won’t go amiss. “Much appreciated,” he says as Red plunks the bottles down on a rough-hewn table between them. “Looks great.”

“It’s crap.” Red eases himself into the old wooden rocking-chair across from the couch. “But it’s the only thing that tastes like home.”

They each open a beer and drink off the first couple of gulps. Red’s right on both counts: it is crap, and it does taste like home. “Now, you say you need to talk,” Red says after a minute of savouring the alcohol. “You got some beer in you. Talk.”

“I don’t know how to begin.”

“That’s not the way, in case you were wonderin’.”

Barnum chances another gulp of beer. It tastes slightly better than the first two mouthfuls; at this rate, he could have a pretty decent drink by the time he gets to the bottom. “My partner’s in jail,” he says when his mouth is clear again. “On suspicion of murder.”

Red nods. “Ayuh,” he says. “Thought that would happen.”

“I’m worried.”

“You’re right to be.” Red creaks in his chair. “Lotta guns in Derry. Lotta people willing to use them.”

“Are you saying there could be a lynching?”

“It’s happened before. And things are bad just now. Very bad.”

Creak, creak. “I’m almost afraid to talk to Sid about the boiler parts,” Barnum says at length. “They should be coming in a couple of days, but…”

“I’ll save you the trouble.” Red’s expression is grim. “They ain’t coming. Sidney knows that as well as I do. But he’s young. Don’t know if it’s hope or foolishness, but whatever it is, the young have it in spades.”

“Why won’t they be coming? Have you heard from Bangor?”

“Nope.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I know what I know, Barnum. Thank God you don’t.” After a moment, Red adds, “Yet.”

The room fills with the sound of old wood.

“That was a strange house you showed us,” Barnum says at last. “Full of old history.”

“Full of somethin’.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Red rubs his hand over his whiskery mouth. “You been seeing any tricks of the light, Barnum?” he asks.

Barnum starts. “Like I said, you got that look,” Red says, satisfied.

“Like I’ve seen a ghost?” Barnum asks wryly.

“Shoot, no,” Red says irritably. “Lots of folks get _that_ look. Nothin’ to write home about. You, though, you look like you _believe_ you saw one. Really believe it. Which,” he adds, “is an expression I have seen but once or twice in my eighty-four years.”

“Do a lot of people see ghosts around here?”

“Sure they do. It’s that kind of place. But not many would admit to it – not above a handful – and even fewer let the truth of it really sink in. Doing that would be like shoving your boot in quicksand – it goes in all right, but it doesn’t come out again so easily. You might just get sucked all the way in, and nobody wants that. Children, though,” he adds after a pause. “Children will believe anything.”

“You said the idea of 29 Neibolt Street being haunted was bullshit.”

“Sure! Sure it is, the way most people mean! People want to talk about a place being haunted the same way they talk about moths gathering around a lamp, or stink hanging in the air after you fart. It’s no such thing.”

“What is it, then?”

“When a thing haunts a place, it makes its _home_ with you. It curls up in the corner like a cat, and it sleeps under your bed like a dog, and it draws from your well with your wife and partakes of your vittles with your kids. It’s yours, for better or worse. _That’s_ what it means to haunt. It’s not a trifling thing.”

“And Derry is haunted?”

“What have I been blathering about?” Red says, throwing up his hands.

“By what, then?”

“That I can’t say. No, I’m not holdin’ out on you, son; I can’t say because I don’t know.”

“It’s not Bob Gray?”

“Bob Gray was a man,” Red says shortly.

“And?”

“Every man is limited by his own imagination. Yours might be a little bigger than most, but that don’t mean a hill of beans when you get down to it. Whatever goes on in Derry at times like this seems bigger than any one man or woman or child. It seems to draw on all kinds of imaginations, if you know what I mean.”

“But you brought us to that house for a reason. It wasn’t just kindness, was it? It has something to do with Bob Gray being a clown.”

Red looks at him and rocks.

“My daughter heard a voice from a sewer pipe in the Barrens,” Barnum pushes. “It called itself Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It could be a human trickster, but I don’t think you believe that. I think you believe it’s something else. Is that what’s killing the children, Red?”

“You desperate enough to believe something that crazy?” Red asks with a toothy grin.

“I’m getting there fast,” Barnum retorts.

“I know it. That’s why I let you in.” Red breathes deeply and expels a loud belch. “Whew. God bless America.”

“You said ‘at times like this,’” Barnum pursues when Red doesn’t continue. “Are some times worse than others?”

“Depends on if you can do math. I was just sixty when it happened the last time. The children gettin’ killed, I mean. I had just moved out here after Myrtle died and my back went. Before that? I was thirty-two, almost thirty-three. Bunch of kids missing, bunch killed. Then when I was a kid of just five, I remember bein’ scared spitless by something I saw in my parents’ bedroom. No, not the nasty thing you’re thinking of; something else, something I’ll take to my grave. Lots of kids killed that year, too.”

“About every twenty-seven years,” Barnum says after a moment of calculation.

“Seems to happen that way. I don’t know why it should, but it does. Any old-timer’ll tell you the same thing, only most wouldn’t dare. That, or they wouldn’t think enough of you. Derrymen keep their secrets.”

 _Like Rouster and the mayor._ “Why don’t you?” Barnum asks, his beer hanging forgotten from his hand.

Red rocks for a bit, beer sloshing in the bottom of his bottle. “I always did,” he says finally. “But I’m gettin’ old. Too old, maybe, to be so scared all the time. I seen four cycles of killing, each one worse than the last. When that canal is built, Derry will explode. Trade will boom and people will fall over themselves to move here. There’ll be a lot more kids to be killed or disappear. And I’ve seen too many deaths already.”

“That’s a lot to carry around your whole life,” Barnum says quietly.

“That’s it,” Red says, pointing at him with his bottle. “That’s it exactly. I always believed that the last task of an old person was to pass on what they carried, good or bad, before they died. I won’t see another killing cycle. Now it’s your burden – a younger, stronger man.”

Barnum wishes Red had never told him this. And yet hasn’t it always been the job of the younger to help the older unload their burdens? “Why would people want to live in Derry if this is all true?” he asks. “If things are really this bad?”

“Same reason you’re still drinking that beer.”

Barnum looks down at his hand. Without realizing it, he has put away two beers and is working on his third. _It’s crap, but…_ Swallowing, he sets the bottle down and pushes it away. “I think I’m done.”

“Ah, but it’s not done with you.” Red gives him a look. “Beer begets piss, my man, and curiosity begets trouble. You wanted to see the world with your big fancy circus train. Well, you’re seeing a piece of it most people could do without.”

“But don’t people in Derry realize what’s happening? That their children are dying from something…something _other?_ Why don’t you all do something?”

“Some do. Some move away. That’s why the mayor was so hot to have you all performing here. Listen close, sonny, and you’ll learn a lesson.” Red leans forward. “You feed the sheep what they want, they’ll risk the wolves. Most people do well here in Derry who don’t get killed. And it’s our home. Even if it’s haunted, it’s home.”

“And the thing that haunts Derry lives in 29 Neibolt?”

“Your daughter,” Red says after a long pause. “The tall one with the doe eyes. You ask her yet what she thinks of the house?”

“I know she got a scare,” Barnum says slowly. “But no, I haven’t asked her.”

“Then you should. Children, no matter their age, are a lot likelier to see strange things than adults. Though I’m not surprised circus folk would see odd manifestations. Imagination is the heart of a child, and you lot have it in spades.”

“Did you put us in danger by bringing us to that house?” Barnum asks, the idea suddenly springing full-grown into his mind.

“No more than you’re in danger just by sitting in the trainyards,” Red returns smoothly. “When I first saw your train chug into view, I got a feelin’. About you. This killing cycle’s almost at its end, you know, if it follows the pattern of all the others. And they don’t end pretty. You’re in it somehow, for better or worse. Better you get a glimpse of what you’re up against than be killed by ignorance.”

“Then I need to learn more. The young woman who was with us that day, the one who was pregnant – she’s given birth. The baby’s fine, but…” Barnum looks at his shoes. His throat suddenly feels tight. “She’s not doing well.”

“Mighty sorry to hear that.”

“I need to get her to Bangor before it’s too late.”

“It doesn’t want you to leave. Not before its business is finished.”

“She’s dying, Red. I can’t let that happen.”

“She’s more than just a performer to you, ain’t she.” Red looks at him pityingly. “Like that young man is more than just your partner.”

Barnum crooks a smile.

Red nods. “All right,” he says resignedly. “The way I see it, you got three options. One, you can sit on your ass and wait for the shipment from Bangor, which ain’t gonna arrive in this century.”

“No go.”

“Two, you can ride out yourself and try to get through. Probably you’ll make it to Bangor if you go alone on horseback, but making it back with the boiler parts…That’s a different story.”

“And three?”

“Three, you can try to reckon with Itself. Mind, that’s the least likely to work as far as I’m concerned. It’s got control of Derry, Barnum. That’s why terrible things sometimes happen here even in a good year. It likes hatred and killing, and it has a way of stirring people up.”

“I have to try something. Even if it’s crazy.”

“That you do,” Red agrees. “Because you’re that kind of man.”

“I don’t know if I can convince the whole circus of what you’re saying, though. It’s one thing for me to believe it having seen what I’ve seen, but…”

“Don’t try,” Red says, looking alarmed. “No, sir.”

“Why? Why the secrecy?”

“Because that’s the way it likes it. Myself, I shouldn’t have said half the things I’ve said, but I told you my reasons and I’m sticking to them. No, Barnum, this isn’t something you try to get a crowd of people to believe. They’re as likely to turn on you as anything. This is something you whisper in the ears of your most trusted friends. I’m not talking about professional regard. I’m talking about someone you’d trust to hold your soul in their hands and not drop it.” Red eyes him. “You got anybody like that?”

“Charity,” Barnum says promptly. “Phillip, Anne.” He considers, but it’s a no-brainer, really. “W.D. Lettie. Charles.”

The names hang in the air between them, and even as he says them, they sound right. Complete.

“Seven of you.” Red nods. “Seven’s a lucky number, you know.” He rocks in his chair, looking at Barnum from under his wiry brows. “Interestin’, isn’t it, that one of ‘em’s dying and another one’s in jail?”

Barnum opens his mouth and finds he has no words to say.

* * *

He takes his leave of Red and goes next to the jailhouse, swinging by the circus to pick up O’Malley. A crowd of men are milling around outside the jail, some sitting, some standing and talking. When they see Barnum and O’Malley, they stop.

“Watch yourself.” Barnum speaks to O’Malley under his breath as they hitch the horses to the posts. “If trouble starts, call for me.”

“Yes, sir.” O’Malley sucks his lip broodily, looking at the staring men. “They’ve got it in for us, no mistake.”

“Hold tight. I won’t be long.” With those words, Barnum hops up the steps and enters the jailhouse.

Fletcher is on duty. The constable escorts him to the ten cells in the back, keys jingling on his belt. Each cell is tiny, barely big enough for a cot and a washbasin. Two are occupied. In one, a rough-looking man with tattered clothes picks at his sore and swollen nose with the corner of his shirt. In the other, Phillip is curled up on his cot with his back to the room.

As Fletcher leaves, Barnum sets down the rucksack Charity prepared. Fletcher’s search of it was thorough. “Phillip,” he says softly, ignoring the foul smell rising from around him. Clearly, whoever’s in charge of emptying chamber pots is slow on the draw. “Phil, it’s me.”

Phillip stirs. Slowly, he peeks over his shoulder. “P.T.,” he says hoarsely. He rolls over and stands, grimacing as his cramped legs adjust. “You came.”

“Are you okay?” Barnum reaches through the bars to cup the side of his neck. “God, you look awful.”

“Still better than you.” Phillip manages a crooked grin. “I need a shave, though.”

“Is that your biggest concern? I was going to say you need a new chamber pot.”

“That’s my friend across the way.” Phillip hugs his coat closer around him. “How’s Anne?”

“No change,” Barnum sighs.

“And Taylor and Josie?”

“Taylor’s worried, but he hasn’t had any meltdowns. He’s looking after his little sister. You should be proud.”

“I am.”

Barnum withdraws his hand and opens the mouth of the rucksack. “I know Charity sent some food yesterday with O’Malley,” he says as he pulls out a blanket. “But this morning she thought the jail blankets might not be so great.”

“I can’t say. I haven’t seen one.” Phillip grabs the blanket and wraps it tightly around himself. A little shudder of relief runs through him.

“You went all night without a blanket?” Barnum cranes his neck to catch sight of Fletcher. “Someone’s going to catch hell.”

“Don’t antagonize my jailor, please.” Phillip burrows his chin into the soft cotton. “Are those men still out there?”

“Yes. Were they here all night?”

“As far as I know. Fletcher and his buddies have been holding them off.”

“I’ll get you out of here, Phil.” Even as the words leave his lips, Barnum realises how empty they sound. “Just like you did for me once.”

“P.T., we’ve both been in jail at least twice,” Phillip says wryly. “The rescues have been numerous.”

“Don’t spoil the moment. Besides, this is different. This is Derry.”

Phillip nods. “Yes,” he says thoughtfully. “This is Derry.”

“Red thinks…” Barnum laughs a little and lowers his voice. “Red thinks Derry is haunted. That something lives in this town that kills children.” He studies Phillip’s face, pale and haggard beneath its two-day growth. “Do you believe that, Phillip?”

He expects Phillip to scoff. Instead, Phillip murmurs as if to himself, “The Death Hands were warm when I touched them.”

Barnum blinks. “What are death hands?” he asks.

“ _The_ Death Hands.” Phillip smiles wearily. “That’s what I call them. I wasn’t going to tell you, because I know how much you like them…”

“Wait. Are you talking about those ringmaster hands Lou Atterton gave us?”

“Gave you,” Phillip corrects. “All he ever gave me were the creeps. The night I found the bloody ticket, I felt them. They were warm and soft. Like living flesh. Just for a second, but I know what I felt.”

“That _is_ creepy.” Barnum cocks his head. “But I didn’t know you didn’t like them.”

“They remind me of something I’d rather forget.” Phillip shifts uncomfortably. “The night my father…you know, the night he sent those men to rough me up, when I first joined the circus? And one of them, ah…with the cane?”

“Ah, shit,” Barnum mutters.

“I think the cane puts it over the top, to be honest.”

“I’ll get rid of them,” Barnum promises.

“And there it is,” Phillip smiles.

“What, you expect me to hang onto them after what you just said?”

“No, that’s why I didn’t tell you. But now you’re talking about hauntings. And even though I don’t really believe in ghosts, I believe this: they _were_ warm when I touched them.”

Silence falls between them. “Red thinks the boiler parts aren’t coming through,” Barnum says at last.

“Why not?”

“He thinks whatever is haunting this town will stop the shipment. I don’t know what to think of that. All I know is that I’ve been asking around, and a number of our people have had strange experiences. Every one of the children has seen something frightening except Ethan, and he just might not be talking.”

At five years old, Ethan is the youngest of the three jugglers’ kids. “You don’t think Taylor could actually be seeing something, do you?” Phillip asks, keeping his voice low. “He keeps talking about the Snark.”

“Look, I saw something, right? And you had that experience with the Hands. And Charity said she saw a witch in the well when Anne was in labour, and Helen heard the voice in the sewer. And there are at least a dozen other incidences I can name where people either said they saw something or I suspect they did. Why not Taylor?”

“All right, say something weird _is_ going on here. What do we do about it?”

“We need to get out of Derry, that’s the main thing.” Barnum blows out a breath. “I could try riding for Bangor, bring back the boiler parts.”

“Not alone, I hope.”

“I would take W.D., but Anne needs him. O’Malley, maybe?”

“O’Malley’s a slow rider.”

“True. Well, I’ll think of someone.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to begin with. It’s dangerous, and it probably wouldn’t do any good.” Phillip looks miserably at Barnum. “But I can’t say no. If you’re set on trying, for Anne’s sake I can’t say no.”

Hoping to cover his distress, Barnum begins to hand items from the rucksack through the bars. “Before I forget, here’s some food Charity sent. She’s concerned they aren’t feeding you properly.”

“It’s not bad.” Phillip eyes the food a little too hungrily. “But it’s much appreciated.”

“Keep up your strength. I have a bad feeling you’re going to need it.”

“There’s a real possibility you won’t be able to get me out without a fight,” Phillip says as Barnum slings the empty rucksack over his shoulder. “If that’s the case, and the boiler parts do come in, don’t wait for me. Get everybody out of here. I’ll keep.”

“That’s not a conversation we need to have just yet.” Barnum cocks a finger as Phillip starts to argue. “Young man, we may be equal partners, but this is one decision I’m making on my own. If need be, I’ll send the others on ahead and stay here with you. No one gets left behind, okay?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Mock all you like. I’m not the one behind bars. Today.”

“I’m not mocking.” Phillip’s lips twitch wistfully. “Thanks for coming, P.T. Will you give Anne and the kids my love?”

“Didn’t need to ask," Barnum says, squeezing Phillip's shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up Monday Nov. 23!


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Caroline begins the day exhausted and bleary. She slept fitfully during the night, passing in and out of dreams that were by turns intoxicating and distressing. Her new form of dancing wove through all of them like a dark, lustrous ribbon. When the night finally passed, she woke with a delicious ache in her heart that sapped her appetite and rendered her distracted. Not since she first started ballet has she felt this way, before the sneers of her peers robbed her dreams of their glow. She feels like she dreamed of lying in a lover’s embrace, only to wake with empty arms.

But there’s no time for dancing or dreaming. Anne’s fever is high, and Charity needs her help. While Barnum and O’Malley are in town, Caroline and her mother strip Anne of her sweaty nightgown and give her a bath. As she helps lower Anne into the tepid water, Caroline is glad she didn’t eat much for breakfast. Diarrhoea and vomiting have set in, as the doctor predicted, and the reek hangs around Anne like a curtain.

Her breasts are swollen with unused milk, her stomach loose from the pregnancy. Caroline cradles Anne’s head as her mother loosens the crust of filth and blood from her thighs. Charity’s silvering hair is tied back in a practical bun, her sleeves rolled above the elbow. No trace of disgust mars her calm face.

“Don’t you feel weird doing that?” Caroline finally ventures as Charity lathers soap over Anne’s wrinkled belly.

“You’ll understand one day.” With that enigmatic statement, Charity washes away the soap with a facecloth.

Anne shifts with a whimper of discomfort as Charity sloshes lukewarm water over her overheated shoulders and chest. “It’s okay, Annie,” Charity murmurs. “We’re here.”

“I want Phillip,” Anne mumbles.

“Phillip will be back soon.”

“Where’s Josie?”

“With Taylor and Lettie.”

“Taylor…?”

“He’s fine. He’s reading to Josie like a good big brother.”

“The Snark.” Anne lolls in the water as Charity washes her feet. “He sees the Snark.”

“It’s okay, Annie. He’ll be fine, and so will you.”

Once Anne is clean, Caroline helps lift her out of the water and onto a fresh towel on the floor. They dry her listless body and manoeuvre her into a nightgown. W.D. carries his sister back to the Bailey railcar, where the bed has been fitted with fresh sheets.

“She’s as helpless as Josie.” Caroline looks on as W.D. brushes Anne’s hair with a gentleness that belies his strength. “I never thought I’d see her like that.”

Anne mutters something about Gramma Ada. W.D. hushes her, the brush whispering through her hair. “It can happen to anyone,” Charity says softly, steering Caroline away. “We’re all vulnerable like that.”

* * *

Barnum finds Caroline in the big top after morning lessons. She’s arranging the children for a rehearsal, patiently working through the whining and giggling and fidgeting. Two months ago, she asked Phillip to write them a children’s play, something the circus kids could present to the adult Oddities when they arrive back in New York. Phillip, being Phillip, obliged with a full-fledged musical, to which Caroline added a number of special acts. Helen, of course, is in charge of costumes.

It may seem frivolous at a time like this, but it keeps them occupied, keeps them from being afraid. Children should be able to be children, even in Derry. Barnum waits until Caroline has redirected attention to Helen, then silently beckons her over. She comes compliantly, as she always does, but the weariness is plain in her face.

“You’ve been working all morning.” Barnum studies her concernedly. The lines around her mouth carry a touch of resentment. “First Anne, then helping with lessons, now this. Have you had any time to yourself?”

“It’s fine,” Caroline says quietly.

“It’s not fine.” Barnum fingers the telegram in one hand. “I’m sorry.”

She simply nods.

Sometimes it hurts to look at her like this, tall and willowy and almost flown away. Helen has never had any problem expressing her needs and wants, but Caroline frightens him a little. She reminds him of Phillip: self-contained and thoughtful, but burning inside with a supernova of creativity. Barnum doesn’t want to be to Caroline what Phillip’s father was to him. He doesn’t want to be her gravity.

“This came to the post office.” He hands over the telegram, studiously refusing to look at it. She needs her privacy. “You’re a popular young woman,” he adds in an attempt at levity.

She takes the telegram without a trace of her blinding stage smile. “It’s from the New York Ballet Society,” she says after a long moment. Her face blanks. “They want me to perform with them.”

Instantly his heart skips upward. The Ballet Society isn’t quite as prestigious as the Academy, but it’s close. The world of ballet is cutthroat, talented young dancers a valuable commodity; only a few days since her dismissal, and already Caroline is a hot-ticket item. “Caroline, that’s fantastic,” he exclaims. “I knew your career couldn’t be over.”

She slowly rereads the telegram. What is that look on her face? He can’t read her well, has never been able to; she’s his enigma, the quiet child in the spotlight, the soft-spoken limelight prodigy. “Aren’t you happy?” he chances, bending a little to look into her face.

“Of course. It’s just…” She shakes her head. “I need some time to think it over,” she says.

Barnum says it before he can rethink it, knowing he’s badgering her as he always does. “What’s to think over? This is your lucky break.”

“They won’t want me unless I stay in New York,” Caroline argues. “In the end, they’ll make me choose between them and the circus.”

“We’ll make it work,” Barnum says firmly. “I promise, the circus won’t interfere with your ballet. We’ll find an arrangement…”

“You don’t get it,” Caroline interrupts. Her voice is uncustomarily sharp. “You don’t understand.”

“Sure I do. You want to be a famous ballerina. You want to take the world by storm. So fluff up the tutu, kid, you’re on your way.”

“Dad…” She blows out a frustrated breath. But at the last second she seems to change her mind, putting away the words she was about to say. “This is a bad time to be talking about this,” she says instead. “There are more important things to worry about.”

“ _Other_ important things,” he corrects. “Your future is the reason I’ve worked so hard.” He takes her hands, hoping for a response. He gets nothing. “Caroline, I’ll do anything to give you your dreams,” he says earnestly. “Anything at all.”

She looks at him, and in her whiskey eyes he sees not the child she is, but the woman she will be. “ _Anything’s_ a big word,” she says quietly. “Even for you.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, and after a second she turns away.

* * *

Taylor wakes from his nap to the sound of metal on the boxcar table. “What are you doing, Papa?” he asks, yawning. Next to him, Josie sleeps on.

He sees Papa pause. “I’m cleaning my gun,” Papa says finally.

Taylor sits up. When he fell asleep, Nora was watching them, not Papa. “What’s a gun?” he asks.

“Not a good thing, Toro.”

“Can I see?”

Papa hesitates, then nods.

Taylor climbs into Papa’s lap, staring with fascination at the object on the little table. “It’s pretty,” he says.

“In a way.” Papa runs his large hands over the gun’s shiny lines. “This is a Colt Lightning M1877, .38 calibre. Nickel-plated. First ever double-action cartridge revolver made in America.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means it’s a special gun and I paid a lot for it.”

“No, what’s _double-action?_ ”

“I shouldn’t talk down to a smart kid,” Papa says softly. “It means pulling the trigger cocks the hammer and fires the bullet with the same motion. It’s faster, but you need a strong finger.”

Taylor runs his short fingers over Papa’s powerful hands. He likes the raspy feel of Papa’s skin, the callouses on his palms. “Is that the trigger?” he asks, pointing.

“That’s it. Don’t touch it, though, okay? _Ever_. That’s what shoots the bullets, and I don’t want you to get hurt.” Papa whispers the tip of his index finger along the curved metal bit. “It’s blued, see? Keeps it from rusting.”

“Yeah.”

“This gun is unloaded – I’ll load it when I’m alone – but even so, I don’t want you ever picking it up. And never point it at anybody you don’t want to shoot, even if it is unloaded. Guns are dangerous, Toro, and life is precious.”

“Then why you have a gun?”

“Because Derry makes me afraid, and a gun makes me less afraid.” Papa squeezes his hands briefly. “Does Derry make you afraid, Toro?”

Taylor likes conversations on Papa’s lap, where he doesn’t have to look him in the face. When he looks at people’s eyes, he gets upset and forgets what he wants to say. “Yes,” he says. “The Snark wants to eat Josie.”

“You love Josie, don’t you?”

“Her skin is really smooth.” Taylor feels the barrel of the gun. It’s slick and silver. Fascinated, he half-forgets Papa is there.

He comes back to himself when Papa rests his chin lightly on top of his head. “No kisses,” he says automatically. People always want to kiss his head, but it makes his skin crawl.

“Promise,” Papa says, his chin jogging as he speaks.

“Who you gonna shoot, Papa?”

“Maybe the Snark. Do you think a gun like the Lightning would kill a Snark?”

“Not a Boojum,” Taylor says firmly.

“Why not?”

“Need a fork.”

“Why a fork?”

“The poem says so.”

“I think a gun is more dangerous than a fork, buddy.”

“Fork,” Taylor repeats stubbornly.

Papa makes a nodding motion. “Okay,” he says. “Whatever you say, Toro.”

“When’s Daddy coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“When’s Mama getting out of bed?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“Will she die?”

“I don’t want you worrying about that.”

“If she dies, where we gonna put her?” Taylor asks, because he’s pretty sure people can’t just lie in bed forever.

Papa sighs. “You’re asking a lot of questions without good answers, Taylor,” he says.

“The Snark wants to kill her,” Taylor says. The words cause a nasty twist in his insides. “Us, too.”

Papa doesn’t say anything for a while. Then, “I believe you about the balloon, Toro.”

Taylor stares at the gun, so still and so dangerous.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before. I saw something too, a scary clown. And your daddy saw something, and your mama, and Meema, and other people too.”

“Uncle D and Lettie and Charles,” Taylor informs him.

“How do you know that?” Papa asks sharply.

“I dreameded it.” Taylor shunts his fingers back and forth over the smooth barrel, delighting in the sensation. “I dreameded that you were all down in the stinky dark place with the Snark.”

“What stinky dark place?”

“It smelled like Josie’s diapers. That’s where it lives.”

“And we were all down there?”

“Yeah. But you looked different.”

“Different how?”

But Taylor doesn’t answer. He’s forgotten again about Papa, lost once more in the world under his fingertips.

* * *

Barnum isn’t surprised to find Charity at Anne’s bedside, nor is he surprised to find W.D., Lettie, and Charles with her. He’s not surprised because they’ve been a recurring theme in his head and heart all day, their names and faces floating constantly to the top of his consciousness. Only Phillip’s absence ruins the unity, as painful as a throbbing tooth. “How is she?” he asks, leaning against the wall.

“In pain.” Lettie bathes Anne’s sweaty forehead with a cool cloth. “It’s her stomach. The fever is getting worse.”

Barnum rubs his face. “I’m going to Bangor,” he says without preface. “I talked to Sid Henson in town this morning, and he’s willing to ride with me to get the boiler parts.”

They all look at him in silence. No one voices an objection, not even Charity. It’s as if they expected it all along, as if a conversation has taken place at the level of their subconscious. “When?” Charity asks.

“Early tomorrow morning. We should get there by nightfall if all goes well.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“No, she means it, Barnum.” Charles looks up at him. “There’s some weird shit going on.”

“I know.”

They look at each other solemnly in the fading light. They are his conscience, these people, the heartbeat of the circus, _his_ heartbeat. He shouldn’t leave them. But for Anne’s sake, for the children’s sake, they need the boiler parts. “I’ll be back,” he says. “In the meantime, I need you to take care of the circus.”

“Done,” W.D. says quietly.

“I know,” Barnum says again, but he’s not so sure. Fear is pulsating in his belly, fear that can’t be assuaged. Something is going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon, and it’s not going to be good. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”

It’s not enough, but he has nothing else to offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up Nov. 30!


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which both Phillip and Barnum encounter some trouble.

**Chapter 12**

It’s not raining when Barnum sets out before dawn the next morning, but it looks like it might. He tacks up Copper with his hands already chilling inside his gloves as Charity stands by holding the lantern.

“Be careful.” She holds her coat shut with her free hand; the air in the big top stable is windless but chill, rosing her cheeks. “Please, Phin.”

“I will.” Barnum tests the saddle girth with two fingers. Finding it satisfactory, he flips the reins over Copper’s russet head. “At least I’m not going alone.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it.”

“I’ll be fine, love.” Barnum cups her cheek and lands a kiss on her lips. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll keep the bed warm for you.”

Charity lights the way out of the big top as Barnum leads Copper into the open air. The workhorse stamps twice as they emerge as if in disapproval of the venture. “Where will Sid Henson meet you?” Charity asks as Barnum inserts his left foot into the stirrup.

“East edge of town.” Barnum swings up, throwing his leg over the saddle. Copper waits patiently for him to nudge his right foot into the other stirrup; if it were Flick, Phillip’s steed of choice, there might be a cheeky trick thrown in. “He and his father are good men.”

“Tell him I’m thankful.”

“I will.” Barnum looks down at Charity, strained and shivering in the predawn darkness, and his heart wrenches. A week ago, he wouldn’t have considered such a trip dangerous. Now, he can’t predict what might happen. “I love you,” he says, reaching for her gloved hand. She slips it into his. “Don’t forget that.”

“I love you too.” She tucks his hand against her neck, pressing her cheek to his knee. “Something bad is going to happen, Phin,” she murmurs. “I can feel it. Just make sure it doesn’t happen to you.”

“I’ll do my best, Chairy.”

With that, she backs away, releasing his hand. He watches until she reaches their railcar before _hupping_ to Copper. They settle into a trot, making headway against the chipper wind.

Sid Henson is waiting on a mud-brown grade horse, his scarf wound high around his cheeks. “Fair mornin’,” he says as Barnum slows Copper to a standstill. “I hope you’ve dressed warmly. Maine’s not known for being pleasant this time of year.”

Barnum’s own scarf is pulled up over his nose. “I passed my wife’s inspection, at any rate.”

“Well, a man can’t argue with that.”

“Thanks for agreeing to go with me, Henson. Not every man would.”

“Well, I know the shipping folks in Bangor, and I feel partly responsible for your delayed parts.” Henson chucks his mount’s sides with his heels, and the beast compliantly moves forward. “We should get there by dark, God willing.”

“I’ve been told that road is bad. That it causes accidents.”

“Somethin’ does.” With that, Henson trots down the deserted road out of town, leaving Barnum to follow in his wake.

* * *

Phillip wakes up in the darkness to a feeling that something is not right.

His jaw is itchy from his growing scruff, that’s the first thing. He’s a man who shaves with almost artisan precision; he’s only ever missed his morning ritual after a night of alcoholic debauchery. The feel of the emerging beard is driving him slowly mad, not to mention the greasy feel of his unwashed skin.

But that’s not the most troubling thing. He sits up on his cot. The book he found tucked between the loaf of bread and cheese Charity sent has pressed a deep line into the skin of his arm. He lays it aside and reaches for his boots, sensing movement in the hall beyond the cells.

He’s had a fitful night, and it has less to do with the discomforts of incarceration than with the posse of men staking out the jailhouse. All night they’ve been out there, sometimes throwing pebbles at his barred window to break his sleep, sometimes just waiting by the front door. Their silence was more unnerving than their taunts and disruptions, as if they were keeping quiet to hear a signal. But a signal from who?

He finishes lacing up his boots and stands, peering at the faint glow of the lantern in the front room. Shadows move uncertainly there, bobbing and nodding. Constable Fletcher has been on duty for about an hour; unusually, he hasn’t come back to check on the prisoners. The low murmur of conversation drifts back. Perhaps he’s trying to convince the protesters to go home.

After a number of minutes, Fletcher comes to the back. “What’s going on?” Phillip slurs the question through his tacky mouth. “Are they gone?”

Without answering, Fletcher unlocks his cell door. His eyes are distant, almost empty; he looks like a man whose soul has vacated his body. Wordlessly he turns and leaves, keys jingling in his hand.

“Fletcher.” Phillip hisses the name through the bars. “What’s going on? Am I free to leave?”

But the constable has disappeared into the front room. Not even his shadow plays on the wall now. Phillip tests the cell door. It swings open with a hoarse creak. Across the way, he can hear the other prisoner stirring. “They lettin’ us out?” the man rasps in a broken Maine accent.

Phillip pushes the door harder. It swings all the way back against the bars. Disbelieving, he stares at the barely perceptible shape of freedom in the foredawn darkness before snapping back to his senses. He quickly gathers his book and blanket; he’s already wearing his coat, and he’s eaten all the food Charity sent. He hurries out of the cell, ignoring the indignant call of the railway tramp in his locked cell.

The men are waiting for him in the front room, Gainer at their head like a human mountain. Fletcher is nowhere to be seen. Phillip barely has time to wheel back toward the cells before a thunderous hand descends on his collar. He struggles as he’s hauled back with a brutal force that rips his coat partway down his back and spills his book onto the floor.

“Fletch –” He can’t finish the shout before a cloth is slung over his mouth, yanked tight between his teeth. He bites it as Gainer shoves him to the floor, kneeling with a knee in his back. The lumberjack holds his wrists together behind his back while one of his friends ties them with a length of rope. A bag is slung over his head, cutting off his view of the world.

He screams as they toss him in the back of a cart. No one responds, maybe because no one is up yet, maybe because some force in Derry doesn’t want them to. The horses are clucked into action, and Phillip sprawls awkwardly in the cart as several men crowd in with him.

 _Dear God I am going to be lynched._ He breathes raggedly through the hood and gag. _I’m going to die because I gave a little girl a free ticket._ _That, and I fell in love with a black woman who very well might be dead._

A tear trickles from his eye, mercifully unseen by his captors.

It’s at least half an hour before they stop in the woods, and by then Phillip has completely lost his sense of place. Men hop down around him and hands drag him from the cart, depositing him roughly on the cold ground. “Get up,” Gainer rumbles; a hard boot to the ribs reinforces the imperative. “Get up, child killer.”

Phillip works his way to his knees, his bound hands chafing behind him. He stumbles over something on his way to his feet and ends up in the grass; he realises a moment too late that the obstacle was a foot. Laughter accompanies this as he lies stunned on the ground, blood trickling from his nose.

They play that game for a while until he’s too exhausted to stand. Then two men haul him up. A noose is worked over his head; he fights at that but he’s no match for his adversaries. He cries out again when the noose is yanked, hauling him to the tip of his toes. He balances precariously, throat working against the rope.

“Take off the hood.” Gainer’s voice is as dark as the ocean depths. “I want to see his face.”

The hood is ripped off. Phillip can’t look anywhere but up into the tree branches, but that’s not a problem; Gainer towers over him, staring down into his eyes. His gaze is black. “Now,” he says as Phillip hitches in a tortured breath. “You’ll feel my pain.”

* * *

Dawn has just broken, but the clouds jealously hide its splendour. The horses stride briskly along the road. Body heat from the beasts keeps their legs warm, but there’s no help for toes and fingers. Barnum flexes his constantly, wishing desperately for the warmth of a well-heated boxcar.

“Your father has a pretty strong opinion about Derry.” Barnum speaks mostly to keep his lips limber. “I guess he would, having lived here so long.”

“Ayuh, he’s a Derryman through and through. Not that many of ‘em raise cows.” Henson chuckles briefly. “Sorry. That’s an old joke in these parts.”

“Dairy man. Sure, I get it.” Barnum presses his gloved hands against Copper’s bobbing neck. “You ever think about moving?” he asks.

“Nope.” This is delivered without flourish or doubt. “It’s home, for better or worse.”

“That’s more or less what your father said.”

“He’s got his opinions, but sometimes he’s right. Nowhere else I’d like to go.”

“Not even Bangor?”

“I don’t hold with big-city life.” Henson looks apologetically at Barnum. “No offense, sir. I like a city to visit. I just wouldn’t like to live there. Too many people who don’t know each other.”

“Sometimes that can be a blessing.” Grimacing, Barnum withdraws his hands and tucks them in his armpits. He can feel the butt of the Colt under his coat.

“Ayuh, I reckon you run into a lot of people you’d rather not know.”

“We get a lot of grief for what we do.”

“Like Bailey at the moment.”

“Let’s just say we’ve been acquainted with a number of different jails in our time,” Barnum says wryly.

“All the same, I’m sorry it’s come to this.” Henson sighs. “Derry’s a good place, but it’s rough at times. And you’ve come at the worst time of all.”

“Your father believes something in Derry is causing the trouble. Something otherworldly.”

“Ayuh, he would.” Henson doesn’t look back this time. “Myself, I don’t bother about such things.”

“So you don’t believe in Derry’s clown?”

Henson’s shoulders tighten visibly. “I like you, Mister Barnum,” he says at length, “but I’d rather not talk about it if it’s all the same to you. I ain’t a superstitious man, but some things are best left alone.”

And as if in punishment for Barnum’s impudence, at that moment it begins to rain.

* * *

Phillip has no idea how long he’s been suspended on tiptoe when the first drops of rain hit his face. At first the men took cheap shots at him, both verbally and with fists, but after a bit Gainer called them off. Now the men sit under a makeshift shelter, drinking whiskey and playing cards, as Phillip struggles to ease his chafing neck with cramped feet. He can feel Gainer’s eyes on him even though he can’t see anything but grey sky through the branches.

The rain picks up steadily until he’s soaked through his clothes. His boots slip in the mud as he strains to take pressure off his neck and jaw; muscle spasms continually ripple through his thighs and calves. Worst of all, he can’t even beg for mercy. The noose makes talking virtually impossible.

He teeters on the edge of blacking out when Gainer finally comes back over. Black dots pop over Gainer’s rugged face as Phillip stares up at him. Gainer works the gag out of Phillip's mouth. Then he lifts his bottle of whiskey and pours it slowly over Phillip’s nose and mouth.

Fire ignites in his sensitive nasal tissue. He bucks and spits to no avail. Faintly he hears laughter from the other men, but it’s drowned in the fiery agony raging in his respiratory passages. He’s a drunk by inclination and so hardly ever touches alcohol; his long abstinence leaves him unprepared for the once-familiar burn. Under the breathless onslaught he finally passes out, descending mercifully into the black.

He wakes up on the ground, the rope slackened around his neck. Gainer is slapping his face to bring him around. Whiskey and blood trickle together through his scruff. Turning his head to cough into the bracken, he looks right into the face of a clown.

It’s crouching not far away in the bushes, dressed in a faded clown costume with orange buttons. Its hair is burnished copper, its face caked with white greasepaint. Its wide grin is scarlet, curving up over its canary eyes like streaks of blood. In one hand it holds a whiskey bottle.

With a shrieking giggle, it pours whiskey over its face, lapping at it with a long crimson tongue. “Drink up, little drunk boy!” it burbles. “Raise a glass to Pennywise the Dancing Clown!”

With an effort, Phillip turns his head to look at Gainer. The man shows no sign that he’s either heard or seen it. “The clown,” Phillip forces out.

Gainer deals him a blow to the face that rocks his head. Once more he finds himself staring into Pennywise’s gleaming eyes. The clown gives him a jaunty wave as if he’s a child at the circus. “Bring your whole family,” it chirps. “I’ll give you all a balloon! You’ll float!”

“Go to hell,” Phillip mumbles without thinking.

“You talkin’ to me, rich boy?” Gainer grabs his jaw. “You killed my daughter,” he says, his lips almost close enough to kiss. Rain spills from his hat into Phillip’s eyes. “Bedamned if I don’t do the same to you.”

“I didn’t…” Phillip starts, but another slap silences him.

“Bring me a knife.” Gainer speaks over his shoulder to his friends. “We’re going to have a little fun.”

* * *

They’re about two hours into their journey when Copper stumbles mid-trot and goes hard to his knees.

Barnum almost loses his seat. He rocks forward, sprawling over Copper’s neck, as the horse whinnies in distress. Almost immediately the workhorse recovers its feet, but only three appear to be functional. The right forehoof touches the ground very uncertainly, hopping back up immediately as if the ground is on fire.

Henson reins in his mount and looks back. “You all right?” he asks.

“I am.” Barnum dismounts. “My horse, on the other hand…”

Quelling his frustration, Barnum kneels and runs his hand over the wounded leg. Both knees on the forelegs are bleeding from the impact of the fall. He can’t see any other external injuries, but the right foreleg is clearly injured. He leads Copper around in a circle to test it. The horse is able to put mild pressure on the leg, so it’s probably not broken, but odds are it’s a bad sprain. Certainly bad enough to prevent the trip to Bangor.

“Look.” Henson points to the spot Copper first stumbled. A turtle hunches by the side of the road, withdrawn into its protective shell. “That’s what did it. A turtle and a wet road.”

Frustration finally bursts out of Barnum in an expletive. The trip is over in a moment, all for the sake of a damn turtle. “I can’t believe this,” he snaps, steadying Copper with a hand on his side. “I just can’t believe it.”

“I’m sorry.” Henson studies them, then glances up at the rainy sky. “I can go on alone, if you like,” he says after a moment’s reflection. “I’ve come this far. I’d hate to turn back.”

It’s a risk sending Henson on alone, but Barnum doesn’t see a better option. Anne doesn’t have much time, and neither do the rest of them. “I hate to ask it of you,” he says. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

“It’s part of my job, and I’m offering.” With that, Henson nods at Copper. “You best get your horse back, see what your vet says.”

“Thank you.” Barnum looks up at Sid Henson. “You’re good people, Sid. I mean it.”

Henson’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “Don’t bother with thanks until I get back with the boiler parts,” he returns.

“Thanks don’t cost me anything. Even if they did, you’d have earned them.”

Mentally preparing himself for a long walk back with a limping horse, Barnum shakes Henson’s hand and turns back for Derry, leading Copper behind him. The warnings about the Derry-Bangor road were right. He’s failed on the first quarter of the trip.

* * *

Red Henson doesn’t always know what sets off his intuition, which seems to have sharpened drastically over the years since middle age. But it’s been buzzing today since four o’clock this morning, like a mosquito trapped in his ear, and now has risen to the roar of a hundred whizzing hornets. He gets painfully to his feet, looking out his window at the miserable weather. Rain sheets down, blocking the usual mid-morning glow. His shotgun stands propped in the corner, loaded by the predawn light of a lantern.

Red hobbles over to it, cursing his bad back. It used to be he could carry on all day hauling tools and equipment; now just getting around the house is a chore. He picks up the shotgun and sights down the barrel. He’s restless, on edge. Has been, in fact, since he and Barnum had their heart-to-heart the previous morning. He feels like a man walking around with a target on his back, a man who fully expects any moment to feel a bullet tearing through his liver.

_That’s the feel of Derry. The feel of having talked when I should have kept my damn mouth shut._

He needs to get out of this cabin, out of this oppressive place where invisible eyes seem to follow him from room to room. He carries the shotgun to the front door and sets it down. He reaches for his musty-smelling coat, the one that carries the scent of home. He’ll run into the post office in town, see if there’s any mail, maybe grab a beer at Rick’s saloon. Then perhaps he’ll drop in on that unfortunate lad Bailey and see if he’s still in one piece.

And he’ll have his shotgun handy, just in case the watching eyes are attached to anything that bites.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind comments! Next chapter up December 7th (wow, are we up to December already?)!
> 
> Note: I feel obliged to say that the Derryman joke comes directly from Stephen King, I don't own that. :)


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which triggers are pulled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This being a horror story, violence is pretty much intrinsic, but I'm giving you a particular heads-up for this chapter.

Rain whips down on the Derry-Bangor road, churning packed dirt into clinging mud. Barnum hunches against the onslaught, plodding relentlessly on as Copper limps behind him. It’s the worst possible weather for travelling shy of a freak snowstorm. He’s soaked and miserable, and they still have a couple of miles to go before they reach the Derry woods.

 _Damn turtle_ , he thinks for the thousandth time, and hunches deeper into his jacket.

* * *

Red Henson hitches a ride with a passing cart to the post office. “Nothing for you, Red,” the clerk says after a moment of searching. “Sorry.”

“Nothin’ to be sorry for. The wife was the one who got all the mail anyway.”

“Where you headed next, Red? I could have the mailcart take you there.”

“Mighty kind,” Red says. “I’m goin’ over to the jail.”

“Trouble with the law, Red?” the clerk grins.

“Naw. I’m payin’ a mercy visit to that circus lad. See if he’s torn to bits yet.”

“I hear Rudy’s friends have been staking out the place. Could be trouble.”

“Not if Fletcher has anything to say about it. Good man.” A sudden thought comes into his head, unbidden and foreign, but neighbourly. “Hey, Jack, you don’t have any mail for the circus folks, do you?”

“As a matter of fact I do. Two telegrams for a Caroline Barnum. Why, you running errands for them?”

“Don’t you worry yourself about that,” Red retorts. “Hand ‘em here, I’ll save you a trip.”

“I wouldn’t make a trip for a freakshow like that if they paid me a hundred bucks.” The clerk hands over the two telegrams. “I guess the closer you get to the pearly gates, the more you got to play the Good Samaritan.”

“Don’t kid yourself, you’re close enough.” Red tucks the telegrams in his coat pocket. “Still gonna give me a ride?”

“Sure I will, _you_ ain’t a freak.”

As soon as Red steps into the jailhouse, he knows something’s wrong. It _smells_ wrong, like the odour one gets lifting off the chamber pot lid to toss the night’s ordure. He hugs his shotgun closer, moving cautiously in. Fletcher is sitting at his desk, his head propped on one hand. He looks unutterably weary.

“Fletch.” Red keeps his finger close to the trigger. It’s not Fletcher he’s worried about; it’s that indefinable _something_ hanging in the air. “Everythin’ all right?”

Fletcher looks up at him, and Red almost recoils. The man’s eyes are glazed, dazed, as if he can’t quite place where or when he is. “Nobody here for you to see,” Fletcher says slowly, his words unusually thick. “Best go home, Red.”

“I came to see the Bailey lad.” Red chances a look down the hall leading to the jail cells. From here, he can’t make out anything. “He back there?”

“Sure. But you don’t want to see him.”

“I think I know my own mind, Fletcher.”

Fletcher sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. “That filth, Red,” he says after a minute. “Why do they come into town? Why do they have to stir things up?”

“I don’t know, Fletch. I guess they’re just tryin’ to make a livin’.”

“Go back there, then.” Fletcher waves a hand distractedly. “Just don’t blame me if he makes things unpleasant for you.”

With one last look at his friend, Red proceeds to the back of the jailhouse. These cells have seen more than their fair share of railway tramps and bootleggers, not that any of them were held long. Derry would far rather see them move on, move out, move away from itself and its own insular rhythms. Much like the circus, he thinks as he comes to the end of the block.

No one back here but a tramp. Red’s insides go as cold as a sheet of ice in December. The lad’s gone, and probably the circus doesn’t even know. “Hey,” he says to the tramp curled up in his cell. The man’s face is eaten with syphilis, his clothes ratty and filthy. “What happened to the other man they were holding?”

“Bastard let ‘im go.” The tramp speaks in a rasp, his black teeth flashing indignantly. “Didn’t even look at me. I’m starvin’ in here, and no one even give me a light.” He pauses. “You gotta light, mister?”

But Red doesn’t have time for the woes of a tramp. He hobbles back to the front, where Fletcher is still slumped over his desk. “Fletcher,” he says, dreading the question on his lips. “Where’s Bailey?”

“Back in his cell.”

“Fletch. Hey, listen to me.” Red leans in. “There’s nobody back there but a tramp. Bailey’s gone.”

Fletcher looks up at him again. His red-rimmed eyes blink slowly. “Bailey’s gone?” he echoes.

“Dammit, man, you must know. You’re the jailward!” Red raps on the desk as Fletcher’s gaze begins to wander. “Tell me the truth, Fletch, and I won’t report you. Are you drunk?”

Fletcher shakes his head with the speed of a turtle creeping through mud. “Never been drunk on the job,” he says. “Never once. Take that to the bank.”

Steeling himself, Red forces himself to bend over and inhale Fletcher’s air. No trace of whiskey meets his expert nose, no trace of alcohol at all, only that stinking under-smell of shit. “I believe you,” Red says as he straightens with the help of his shotgun. “God help me, I do.”

“Yep,” Fletcher mumbles.

“Fletcher, you’re a good man. You never yet fell down on the job. So tell me: did Rudy and his cronies come and take Bailey?”

Fletcher blinks at the wall. “I guess,” he says at length, maddeningly dopy, “that’s a possibility. See, I saw something this morning, Red, something I haven’t seen since I was a kid. Back in the storage closet, where the papers are. I saw…”

“Hell’s bells, Fletch.” Red backs up, alarmed. “I don’t wanna hear about that.”

Fletcher falls silent. Red doubts very much the man will remember any of this when he comes out of it. Something is working against them here, and it’s burrowed its way deep into Fletcher’s brain. “One more question,” Red pushes, because this is desperately important. “Where did they take Bailey?”

“Hell’s bells,” Fletcher sighs, sinking deeper against his hand.

“Pull yourself together, man!” Red stamps the shotgun butt against the floor in hopes of startling Fletcher into truth. “A man’s life is at stake. Where did they take Bailey?”

For a few moments it seems that he won’t get an answer at all. But then Fletcher pushes himself a little more upright, as if fighting against a counterforce determined to keep him down. “Where they lynched the harlot in ’23,” he says.

Red knows the site. Most people do in Derry; it was one of the most infamous lynchings ever to take place in this area. “Hope you’re not gonna need your horse for anything special,” he says shortly, heading for the door. “’Cause I don’t have the wherewithal to slug through the woods anymore on my own two feet.”

Fletcher doesn’t answer, and Red doesn’t expect him to.

* * *

Before today, Phillip wouldn’t have said lumberjacks would be particularly good at hitting targets at distance. And yet not one of them has missed their aim.

He’s bound to the trunk of a tree, his arms lashed to branches above his head. His captors have been taking turns hurling knives, axes, and peaveys at him, holding a competition to see who can come closest to his body and not nick him. He’s exhausted and frigid, soaked through with rain, arms and legs gone numb in their bonds.

Surely Fletcher will come to his senses soon. Surely.

He heaves in another breath as a knife thuds into the tree trunk next to his ribs. _I’m sorry, Anne. I’m sorry I got our family into this mess._ “When we gonna hang him, Rudy?” asks one of the lumberjacks, sprawled in the cart with his lips on a bottle. “I’m gettin’ cold.”

Gainer pauses in the act of yanking the knife out of the tree. “You ready to die now, Bailey?” he asks.

“No,” Phillip mumbles.

“Didn’t think so.” Gainer stalks back to his former position and takes aim. “Don’t move, unless you want a new scar.”

He hurls the knife, and it thuds home a bare inch from his left cheek.

“You win, Rudy.” The other lumberjack tosses aside the bottle. It hits a jutting tree root and smashes. “Let’s lynch ‘im.”

“I don’t think you should do that, boys..”

Phillip jerks his head as the lumberjacks turn as one. Unnoticed beneath the chatter and occasional jeers, Red Henson sits several paces away on a tall grey horse. A shotgun is tucked against his shoulder, the barrel pointed at the ground. For a moment Phillip thinks he’ll break down and cry from sheer relief. But there are eight lumberjacks and only one Red, and that’s not encouraging math.

“Go back home, Red,” Gainer says as the lumberjacks stare at Red with drunken surprise. “This ain’t a fight for you.”

“No, it ain’t. So why don’t you let that man go?”

“I got business with him. No one kills my little girl and gets away with it.”

“He didn’t kill Tessa, Rudy. We both know that.”

Gainer laughs. It’s the darkest sound Phillip has ever heard. “You’re too sure of yourself, Red,” he says. “Go on home. I don’t want to pick a fight with an old codger.”

“And I don’t want to shoot you.” Red brings the barrel of the shotgun to bear as steadily as a boy playing guns with a stick. “You got a family. But I can’t let you kill that lad.”

“Why? You like freaks?”

“That ain’t the point.” Red’s gaze doesn’t waver. “There’s been too much bloodshed in this little town, Rudy.”

“You say that holdin’ a gun?”

“I say that knowin’ it never stops at one in Derry. You kill that man, you’re gonna unleash a massacre.”

Gainer’s massive hands work at his sides. Red’s mouth is a slash across his face. Phillip rolls his head back against the tree and tries once more to ease the tension on his spreadeagled arms. _Please, God, let Gainer come to his senses. Let me live to see my family._

As fast as a blink, Gainer’s hand comes up. The knife whistles through the air, embedding itself with a wet _thunk_ in Red’s side. With a cry, the man jerks, pulling the trigger. Gainer stumbles back with a curse, holding his chest. A red flower blossoms between his fingers.

To Phillip’s amazement, Red holds his seat. His face, however, is snow-white. With a visible effort, he points the gun at the other lumberjacks as Rudy slowly folds to the ground. “Won’t hesitate,” he rasps. “You know that now.”

One of the men stands, a giant nearly the size of Gainer, and goes to his fallen friend. “He’s still alive,” he reports to the others. “But he’s fadin’.”

“Get him on the cart.” Red’s words are choppy. “Bring him to Doctor Michaels. Maybe he’ll live. Maybe he won’t. But at least you won’t join him.”

“Help me,” the lumberjack snaps, and three of the others immediately stumble forward. They’re all drunk, but between them they manage to lift Gainer onto the cart. His chest rises and falls incrementally.

As they all load onto the cart, the lumberjack looks at Red. “You’ll regret this,” he says. “You won’t live to see tomorrow.”

“I know I won’t live.” Red slumps over the shotgun but somehow manages to keep it level. “But I won’t regret it.”

Slowly the cart moves off in the direction of town, leaving the two of them together.

“My God.” Phillip forces the words through a parched mouth. “Are you okay?”

“Nope.” Red painfully slides off his horse. The shotgun falls from his hand to the ground as he collapses to his knees. “Shit,” he mutters, grasping his side. “I knew somethin’ like this was gonna happen.”

“Can you free me? I’ll get you back to the circus, we’ll get you some help…”

“The first I can do, I think, if I still have the grit.” Red pushes himself to his feet, using the shotgun to prop himself up. With grimacing steps, he makes his way to where Phillip stands against the tree. “But I ain’t gonna make it out of these woods.”

“Yes you are.” Phillip tries not to flinch as Red grasps the handle of the knife in his side. “Listen, I promise, you won’t die for my sake.”

“No, I’ll die for Derry. Look away, boy, you ain’t got the constitution to watch this.”

Phillip obeys as Red yanks the knife out of his side. “I’m sorry,” is all Phillip can say as Red cries out into the rain. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Red collapses against him; Phillip feels the damp of his rain- and blood-soaked clothes against his own. “Hold still, boy, my hands ain’t steady.”

Slowly, with long pauses and groans, Red cuts Phillip down. As the ropes fall away, Phillip slumps down the tree to the ground, biting back a scream as the blood rushes back into his limbs. He shudders through the pain as Red sinks down next to him, holding his gushing side.

“I’m sorry, Red.” Phillip speaks with difficulty, rain trickling down his face like tears. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

“’Course you didn’t. You’re a good man, for a fop.”

“How did you know?”

Red chuffs a laugh. “I ain’t stupid, boy,” he says.

“I know you’re not.” Phillip breathes through the agony, willing strength back into his limbs. “Thanks for saving my life, Red. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

Red says nothing.

Phillip turns his head and looks into his dull, dead eyes. His throat tightens. “My God, Red,” he says, and then he does cry. He cries into the rain while his limbs scream for relief.

* * *

Phillip doesn’t have the strength to lift Red’s body. Instead, he lays the man down and arranges his limbs, then closes his rain-filled eyes. He fumbles the man’s coat off and lays it over him, covering his face.

As he does, two pieces of paper fall out of the pocket.

He picks them up. They’re telegrams, addressed to Caroline. Each is from a prominent ballet company in New York, offering her membership. _If we ever get out of here, maybe she’ll even accept one_. The thought recalls him to action, and he tucks them away in his own pocket before whistling to the horse.

He can’t get into the saddle. He tries and tries, but his limbs simply refuse to cooperate. Finally giving up, he settles for hanging onto the saddle and letting the horse walk him through the woods. Before he does, he slings his soaked coat over the back of the horse. It’s doing nothing to keep him warm, and the weight is prohibitive.

The Kenduskeag’s roar grows steadily in power. When at last it comes into sight, Phillip is stunned. Its previous benign flow has become a thundering rapid, swollen by the copious rain. The banks have completely disappeared. Shivering, Phillip lets the horse plod a course parallel to the river. If he accidentally falls in, he’ll never get out again.

“Hello, Phillip.”

He pulls up short. It’s the little girl he saw by the bridge, the one who called him a cheater. Her eyes gleam orange as she stands in the middle of the river, impossibly steady in the midst of its buffeting current. “Who are you?” he cries, clutching the horse as it skitters back. “What have you done?”

“My father got you good.” She giggles, revealing teeth stained crimson. “He got you _so good_.”

The horse skitters again, whinnying in distress. Phillip tries to hold it back, but it’s too strong. It dances out of his reach, clattering off into the forest. Bereft of his support, he sinks to one knee.

“Anne’s gonna die, Anne’s gonna die.” The girl claps her hands. They run with blood. “You’re gonna die. Baby’s gonna die.”

“No!”

“Taylor’s gonna die.” She giggles again, covering her bloody mouth with her bloody hands. “Does he taste good, Phillip?”

It’s too much. Phillip collapses forward onto his hands, his head swirling. As he goes down toward unconsciousness, he feels the touch of a clawed hand on his shoulder and smells the rotten-meat stink of the monster.

 _It_.

* * *

Barnum almost doesn’t get out of the way in time. He and Copper are following the road toward town when a shriek from the woods to the south draws his attention. A few seconds pass, then a grey horse stampedes out of the woods.

Barnum jerks back, hauling on Copper’s reins, as the other horse barrels toward them. Its eyes are rolling, its mouth frothing with panic. Copper stumbles back with his master, but not quickly enough; the other horse hits his haunches, sending him reeling onto his front legs.

The grey horse recovers and backs away, but a sickening snap heralds Copper’s fate. With a horsey scream, the poor beast goes down on his side in the road, legs sprawling and kicking. The sprained foreleg, strained past the breaking point, juts crookedly.

Shaken, Barnum stares at his downed beast in disbelief. Copper stills, moaning through his spittle-flecked mouth; his eyes roll to Barnum as if in supplication. Throat tightening, Barnum looks up at the grey horse. “Get out of here,” he shouts, suddenly furious. A good horse ruined, and for what? “Get the hell out of here!”

The horse snorts and bolts toward town. Something fell from its back when it hit Copper, but Barnum ignores it. With trembling hands he takes out his Colt. “You didn’t want me to leave town,” he says as he grasps the deadly curve of the butt. “Fine, I get it. But did you have to kill my horse, you sick bastard?”

Taking aim at Copper’s head, he closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

The report is deafening. Opening his eyes, Barnum bites back a curse. Copper’s moans have ceased; his head is shattered from the bullet. “I’m sorry, old friend,” he says thickly. “But it’s better this than let you suffer.”

Turning away from the sight of his dead horse, Barnum goes to the fallen item in the road.

At first he’s not sure how to compute what he’s seeing. It’s Phillip’s coat, he knows that, but what’s it doing out here in the woods? It makes no sense that he wants to accept, and for a minute he simply kneels there with the sodden garment dripping through his fingers.

Then he bolts to his feet, coat in hand. “Phillip,” he shouts, heading straight into the woods, ignoring the slap of bracken. “Phillip, where are you?”

The grey horse’s path is clear on the muddy ground and through the broken foliage. Barnum follows it desperately, shouting Phillip’s name, uncaring of the potential danger around him.

He hears the Kenduskeag nearby. He bursts out of the failing greenery onto what used to be its banks, teetering on the edge of falling in. Several yards down, he sees the dead railway foreman from their only show in Derry standing in the river. It raises its head, tendons creaking, its cracked and swollen face grinning balefully.

“Hello, Penny-ass,” it croaks. “Come and get me.”

The Colt is still in his hands. He raises it to shoulder level, heart beating wildly in his ears. It’s a double-action; he doesn’t have to waste time cocking the hammer. So he doesn’t have that split-second to take his finger off the trigger when the monster vanishes and the only thing in his sights is Phillip.

The gun fires, a bellowing condemnation. _Curve_ , is all Barnum can think in one red-hot surge of desperate desire, but it’s too late.

* * *

On the verge of an all-out swoon, Phillip doesn’t see Barnum shoot him through the encroaching blackness. But he hears the crack of the Colt, feels the twin tugs of his shirt as the bullet passes through front and back.

There’s no pain. Maybe it’s because he’s still partially numb from the cold and bondage, but he feels nothing. The noise clears his head a little, and he looks up, dazed, to see Barnum staring at him down the barrel of a gun.

“P.T.?” His voice is a pathetic croak in the rain. “Where did you come from?”

With an animalistic wail, Barnum drops the gun. He sprints forward, going to his knees. He shoves Phillip onto his back, hands tearing at his shirt. “Dear God, no,” he chants, ripping it open. “No, no, no, no. I didn’t shoot him. I didn’t shoot him. Please God, I didn’t shoot him.”

Phillip blinks up at the sky as Barnum’s hands frantically search his torso. The man’s hands are warm on his chilled skin. “I don’t feel any pain,” he notes almost calmly.

“Shock.” Barnum’s fingers hesitate, then begin an examination of his shirt. “Here’s a bullet-hole in the fabric over your left breast. It’s right here, where’s the wound? Where’s the wound?”

Barnum’s hands insistently turn him over. Phillip finds himself facedown in the mud as Barnum examines his shirt from the other side. “Here’s the other hole,” he reports; Phillip can feel Barnum’s finger wiggling through the rip. “The bullet should have exited just under your left shoulder blade. There should be a hole the size of my fist. _Where’s the wound?_ ”

“The better question is,” Phillip says, giddy with cold and a narrow escape and all the impossibilities of this moment, “why are you ripping my clothes off in the middle of the woods?”

“Because I bloody shot you!” Barnum jerks him upright; his pupils are pinpricks in his shocky eyes. “I felt the report all the way up my arm, there are two matching bullet-holes in the middle of your shirt, where the hell is the blood?”

Phillip stares at him, then suddenly breaks into helpless giggles. He cradles his face in his hands as rain pelts the top of his head. “I’m cold,” he manages to say through giggles and shivers. “And I want to see Anne. Can we go?”

“Dammit, Phillip, I shot you!”

“No you didn’t.” Phillip suddenly feels too weary to live, too weary to breathe. “You should have, but you didn’t. And now I’m very tired. Please, P.T., can I go home?”

After a long moment, he feels Barnum’s arms go around him, and he leans into the warm embrace like a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your wonderful comments, they give me life! Next chapter up Monday Dec. 14!


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Caroline gets a nasty shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't express how lovely all your comments are! You people do more for my focus and creativity than a hot cup of tea, and that's saying something!

Chapter 14

The bullet curved.

Barnum knows it in his heart, knows that in some unknown way he _made_ it curve by sheer force of desire, but he still can’t accept the fact in his brain. He can’t accept that Phillip lies next to Anne, kissing her feverish temples, ragged and unshaven and hoarse from the rope but very much alive. He can’t accept it on a factual level, so he leaves them and goes to find Charity.

She rises at the sight of him with a small cry. He lets her cling to him, whispering against his neck, as Taylor watches thoughtfully from next to a sleeping Josie. “You’re safe,” Charity murmurs as he presses her body close to his. “I was so worried.”

“Me too.”

“No you weren’t. You never think enough to be worried.”

Barnum lowers his head to catch her lips in a brief kiss. “I love you,” he says when it ends. “And I’m very cold.”

“I can feel it.” Charity strokes his cheek. “What happened, Phin?”

“Copper broke his leg on the road. I had to shoot him.” Barnum hesitates, looking at Taylor. “And I brought Phillip back.”

“Oh, Phin! How?”

“You should probably ask him.” Barnum inclines his head meaningfully at Taylor. “Not the time or the place.”

“Of course.” Charity releases him. “Is he with Anne?”

“I don’t think you’ll pry those two apart this century.” Barnum smiles, but it’s weary. “I’ll bring Taylor and Josie over in a minute, okay?”

Charity leaves, sliding the boxcar door shut behind her. “Hey, Toro,” Barnum says, sitting on the edge of the bed. Taylor has one of Josie’s little hands in his; her tiny fingers are curled around his thumb. “How you doing?”

“You brought Daddy back.”

“That I did.”

“Is Daddy hurt?”

“A little. Mostly he’s cold and tired. Jail isn’t a nice place.” _Derry isn’t, either._

“I dreameded about a turtle as big as everything.”

Barnum blinks at the sudden transition. “A turtle as big as everything?” he repeats.

“I went in its shell,” Taylor informs him.

 _A turtle on the road, a turtle in Taylor’s dreams._ “It was that big, huh?”

“It talked.”

“Really? What did it say?”

“The penny’s in the well.”

“What does that mean?”

“Red is dead,” Taylor says simply. “The penny’s in the well.”

Unease stirs in Barnum’s belly. “How do you know Red Henson is dead?” he asks softly.

“He was in the turtle’s shell too. He said, ‘I’m dead ‘cause I showed Caroline the well.’”

“Did he say anything else about Caroline?”

“No.”

“Did he say anything else at all?”

“He said, ‘The penny’s in the well.’”

Suddenly it’s not just the rain and the chill making him shiver. Barnum resists the urge to look over his shoulder and holds out his hand instead. “Come on,” he says. “I think you need to go see your parents.”

“Need my fork.”

“Your what?”

Instead of answering, Taylor slides off the bed. He patters to the side table and opens the drawer. “What’s that for?” Barnum questions as Taylor solemnly withdraws a fork.

“It kills Snarks,” Taylor says, as if this is something everyone should know.

* * *

“Come in, Caroline.” Phillip smiles tiredly at her as she hovers in the doorway. In the bed, Anne sleeps fitfully. “I have something for you.”

“Did you carve me something out of soap while you were in prison?” she asks, trying to smile. She fails. Phillip is scruffy and worn, a ghost of his former self, his neck red with rope burns. _He could have died._

“Unfortunately, no. I knew I should have used my time better.” He rises, walking stiffly to where his sodden coat hangs by the door. “Red Henson picked this up for us in town.”

He holds out two telegrams. Caroline reads them in silence. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asks after a long minute.

“Yes.”

Caroline nods. She barely knew him, but he was a nice old man, and in this place where death draws all too close, she feels it like a weight over her heart. “Thank you,” she says, pocketing the telegrams. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine. It looks worse than it is.”

“It looks pretty bad.”

“I just need warmth and my family.” Phillip goes back to the bed, sinking down gingerly like an aged man. “We’ll get out of here, Caroline. Your father will make sure of that. And then you’ll have your whole career ahead of you.”

She nods dutifully. “Get some sleep,” she says, backing out of the car to where W.D. waits for her. “You really do look awful.”

W.D. brings her back to the big top where the other children are finishing a rehearsal with Helen and several Oddities. But she doesn’t join the group. Instead, she slips back to one of the costume rooms.

Alone, she leans against a wardrobe and cries.

When at last the tension has left her body, she straightens, looking around for a pail of water to wash her face. Her gaze falls on a package sitting on a crate nearby. Curious, she bends over and reads the lettering stamped across the front.

 _For Caroline Barnum,_ it reads.

Three telegrams from New York ballet companies, and now this? Gingerly, she picks up the package and shakes it. A shuffling sound meets her ears. Taking hold of one end, she tears it open.

A flood of telegrams spills out. Stifling a shriek, Caroline jumps back from the papery deluge. It goes on and on. When it finally stops, there are dozens of telegrams on the ground, possibly hundreds. Far too many to have been contained in that one package.

Cautiously, she bends over and picks one up. _Come be our next act!_ it reads. _Pennywise wants YOU, Caroline!_ She picks up another one. It says the same thing. So does the next. And the next. And the next. And the next.

She drops the telegrams and backs away. _So light on your feet, you’ll float,_ she thinks wildly, and barks a shaky laugh.

“Caroline?” W.D. calls. “You in there?”

“Be right out!” she shouts back, hoping her voice doesn’t convey her desperation. She quickly looks around and spots a pail sitting nearby. Bending over it, she cups water and splashes her tear-stained face.

_I’m not receiving telegrams from some demon clown. I’m not. It’s just coincidence that all those ballet companies suddenly want me. And when I turn around, those telegrams will be gone. They WILL be gone._

She scoops another handful of water, raising it to her face. Something floats down to her palm, settling against her skin. She looks down.

It’s a penny.

Suddenly her skin seems to have shrunk, tightening against her muscles and scalp. It’s one of Dad’s trick pennies, she can tell by the look and feel of it. Weighted, like the one she pitched down the well in the house. And it’s here in her palm instead of a hundred feet below Derry.

 _I wish to be a dancer_.

No. She won’t believe it. It’s coincidence.

_If you aren’t grateful to the spirit of the well who made it come true…_

Overwhelmed by horror, she throws the water and penny alike at the bucket. With a plop, the penny sinks below the surface and settles, glinting, to the bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to apologise for the shorter update, it's just getting near midnight here and I've had an extremely busy week. The Christmas rush is getting real, people. Next weekend I should have more of a breather and be able to post more.
> 
> Next chapter up Monday Dec. 21!


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

When Barnum walks into the dining car that night, he’s expecting nothing more than a late supper. What he gets is something quite different.

“What’s this?” He tries to sound lighthearted, but it’s hard; the small group of performers gathered together look too conspiratorial by half. The juggler family is there, as well as a couple of the acrobats and a few assorted Oddities. They look grim and tired.

“Nothing, Barnum.” Henry, one of the jugglers, keeps his eyes on his coffee mug. “We’re just talking.”

“Looks pretty serious.” Barnum surveys the group. None of them will meet his eyes. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Henry glances around at his fellow Oddities. Then he finally, finally looks up at Barnum. “We’re thinking about clearing out,” he confesses. “This town is too dangerous, and the boiler parts aren’t coming through. We have three children to worry about, Barnum. And Ethan…he’s been crying all day. Said he saw something by the Barrens.”

“We can’t split up.” Barnum speaks levelly, but his heart is pounding. It’s not the fact that they’re frightened and want to leave; they all feel that way. It’s the fact that they didn’t think they could come to him about it. “It’s too dangerous. I don’t think a whole family would make it far on that road right now.”

“It’s just a road, Barnum. And it’s safer than being stuck here.”

“You don’t know that. Something is going on, something…”

“A haunting?” One of the acrobats looks at him with incredulity that isn’t convincing. “Be serious, Barnum. What we’re really concerned about are guns and ropes. Bailey was almost killed today because everyone thinks we’re child murderers. You really want to keep us here under those conditions?”

“Of course not!” Barnum’s frustration shows through despite all he can do to keep it hidden. “I’m doing my best to get you out of here. But it’s a long way to Bangor on a rough road, and there’s no telling what will happen if we start splitting up.”

The Oddities go silent, but it’s not compliance. It’s the silence of people who don’t want to talk anymore because they’ve made up their minds. Barnum leaves without getting any food; he’s lost his appetite.

* * *

He doesn’t intend to go to 29 Neibolt Street, certainly not without informing Charity. And yet that’s where he finds himself in the dark, standing in front of the iron fence, staring up at the house that stares back.

He’s drawn to the house in a way he can’t explain, with a sick fascination. He pushes through the gate, wincing at the rusty _scree_ of its hinges. The wind sighs through the empty yard. Above him, the vulture-tree looms disapprovingly.

The house has that same low odour, that indefinable trace of an indefinable presence. Barnum leaves the front door standing open. He peeks into the parlour first, then proceeds into the sitting room with the writing-desk. The skin on his neck and arms and belly crawls. With a wary glance behind him, Barnum puts his eye to the crack in the wall.

The picture is still there. _ISE_ mocks him, the end of a word he can’t quite make out. Taking out his handkerchief, he winds it around the knuckles of his right hand.

The wood is old and gives at once with a complaintive snap. Reaching into the newly made hole, Barnum snags the picture and pulls it out. It’s dusty but clearly recent. Taking it over to the writing-desk, he unrolls it.

 _PENNYWISE THE DANCING CLOWN_ , the side of a circus caravan proclaims. Below the words is an image of a clown with white greasepaint and a red smile curving over its cheeks, bisecting its eyebrows. In front of it stands a tall man with thinning hair and a sharkish grin; he has his arm around a little girl in black boots and a too-short dress. Her face is bruised.

Behind them, in the background, are caravans from the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Heart jerking in his chest, Barnum backs away from the photograph. Instead of rolling back up, however, it remains flat where he left it. And as he looks at it, the little girl in the picture moves. Placing her palms flat against the front of the photograph as if against a pane of glass, she says in a tinny, faraway voice, “He gave the girl the ticket. I saw him. He cheated. And my father got him good.”

From down the hall comes a slumping sound, like a bag of flour sliding to the floor.

Barnum runs. Even as he does, he knows what will happen, as if he’s lived this before. The front door, just inches away from his stretching fingers, slams shut. Sweating profusely, Barnum yanks on the doorknob, to no avail. It’s shut fast.

He can hear the thing slumping toward him down the hall, slow but implacable. He rams at the door with his body, but it holds. It’s solid despite its age, stubborn. At last, in desperation, he turns to face whatever is coming to get him.

It might once have been a man in a clown suit, but the legs and one arm are severed, the other arm cut down to the bone. Blood gouts from the stumps. The limbs and torso drag themselves along, heaving up to pull forward and then collapsing as if exhausted. The head hangs down, its face obscured by a halo of wiry golden hair.

“This is the greatest show.” The voice warbles, a grown man imitating a child, the singsong full of diseased glee. “Oh, Ringmaster, that’s not quite true. _Mine_ is the greatest show.”

A low chuckle rasps through the air.

As Barnum stands there, helpless with horror, the head pops up to reveal the face of a lion.

Barnum rams back against the front door as a deafening roar fills the hall. “You’re not real,” he manages to say as his ears ring. “You’re not real.”

His throbbing hand begs to differ. One of the severed legs totters, then falls against one of the walls. The attached arm shoves the torso upright, the maw of the lion yawning wide. Blood and spittle run together down the massive canines. “Come and play, Phineas,” a clotted voice croons from inside that mouth. Deep in the throat, deadly orange lights begin to swirl. “Come float in the deadlights.”

“No!” Barnum cringes back against the door, winching his eyes shut. Something about that orange light speaks of madness, of a plane of existence on which there is no speech, only gibberish and screams. “Leave me alone.”

“You will be alone. They will all leave you.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes.” A giggle rises, as cloying as rotten fruit. “I’ll make them. A ringmaster is nothing in the real world. When playtime is over, they’ll leave you one…by…one.”

Hot breath washes over his bad hand. “And then,” it whispers, “I’ll eat them all up.”

Barnum isn’t sure where his next words come from. But when they leave his mouth, he knows they’re right and they’re good. “Down, Zeus!” He snaps an imaginary whip against the floor, and suddenly the hot breath recoils. “Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!” He snaps it again; he could swear he hears the tip smack the floorboards.

“Stupid man.” The voice is a growl now, but new uncertainty threads it. “Thinks he can fool Pennywise.”

Barnum opens his eyes. The lion-corpse has withdrawn a foot or two. It’s not much, but… “Back,” he warns, brandishing the imaginary whip. He can almost feel the smooth leather butt in his hands, the reassuring weight. “Down, Zeus. Good boy, Zeus.”

“Stupid,” the voice hisses. “You’ll float in the deadlights!”

Behind his back, Barnum tries the doorknob again with his bad hand. It turns. Thrilling with hope, he pulls. The door opens about a foot and then slams shut again, ripping out of his sore hand. “Shit,” he whispers, shaking out his hand. He grabs the doorknob again. This time, the door opens further.

“You’ll float!”

“Stay back.” Barnum flexes his bad hand, trying to ease the ache. One more chance, but he’ll probably bust some stitches. “Stay down.”

“Float!”

“Stay!” Sucking in a breath and careful not to look at the dancing orange lights, Barnum grips the doorknob. With a mighty effort, he heaves. But there’s no resistance. The door flies open, sending him stumbling against the wall. Without hesitation, he rebounds and darts out the door, thudding down the sagging porch steps. He doesn’t bother with the gate. Instead he leaps the fence, nearly faceplanting on the other side.

When he finally gathers the courage to look back, the doorway to the house is empty.

* * *

Barnum isn’t surprised to find his closest friends gathered together when he returns. A sense of fate is hanging over him, dangling mid-air by the slimmest of threads, and somehow these six people are part of it. Phillip lies with Anne in the bed, talking quietly to her as she dozes on his shoulder. Charity and W.D. sit by the side of the bed; Lettie and Charles stand in a corner together. For a moment Barnum just watches them, soaking in their presence; then he steps in.

“Some of our people are thinking about leaving.” He thrusts his hands into his pockets for warmth; he can still feel the photograph under his fingertips, the terror translating into shakes. “I don’t blame them. I’m more worried that no one bothered to discuss it with us.”

“Oh, Barnum,” Lettie sighs.

“I’m afraid I can’t keep this circus together much longer. Not after what’s been happening.” Barnum looks down at Phillip; the younger man’s eyes are worried. “I almost shot you, for God’s sake. If I’m jumping at shadows, how can I blame anyone else?”

Silence permeates the boxcar. “What do we do, then?” Charles asks at length. “I mean, we’re not gonna leave you, no matter what. So what do you want us to do?”

Gratitude washes warmly over Barnum’s chilled heart. “I don’t know exactly,” he says. He leans against the wall. “But I have something to tell you.”

He tells them about going back into 29 Neibolt, about the photograph of Bob Gray and his little girl Elvira, about the thing that accosted him in the hallway. “It lives there,” he completes. “Whatever it is, whatever’s been stalking us, it lives in that house. And it’s preying on children. On everyone, really. Red Henson told me it’s got this whole town in the palm of its hand.”

“And we actually believe this?” W.D. asks. He doesn’t sound dubious. He sounds as if he’s merely inviting agreement.

“I believe it,” Charity says quietly. “I saw a witch in the well one night, a witch with clown’s pompoms on its fingers. You’ll think that’s crazy, but it’s true.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” Phillip throws in. He tells them about seeing Elvira, about the Death Hands.

“I saw something too.” W.D. shifts nervously. “It was those dogs that chased me and Anne when we ran from slavery all those years ago. But on their snouts they had red clown noses. And Anne’s been seeing Gramma Ada. I know that sounds like the fever talking, but considering everything else…”

“I saw something too,” Lettie says quietly. “It was my father. He’s been dead for a while. He had a razor.” She hesitates, but then goes on. “When I was a little girl, he tried to shave my face once. He was drunk, and he almost cut my throat. When I saw him here, he chased me with that razor. I’m afraid to close my eyes at night in case I see him again.”

“Charles?” Barnum says after a minute of silence. “What about you?”

For a few moments, it seems like Charles won’t say anything. Then, “When I was a kid,” he says, looking at his boots, “there was this stupid legend about this ghost they called the One-Eyed Yokel. The legend said that he hung around alleys waiting for kids to pass by so he could grab them and steal one of their eyes for his own. You know, to see if their eye would fit his socket.” He barks a humourless laugh. “I was so scared of him. All the kids said he’d always stalk me ‘cause I’d never grow up. Stupid, but…”

“But you saw him,” Charity says gently.

Charles shrugs, then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I saw him.”

Silence again. “Sid Henson is on his way to Bangor,” Barnum says at last. “If he makes it, we may be in luck. If he doesn’t…” He lets that hang in the air. “The point is, we all agree that something in Derry – Bob Gray, Pennywise, whatever you want to call it – is trying to hurt us, drawing on our deepest fears. I don’t know how that can be true, but it is. The question is…”

He never gets to finish his sentence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry, Merry Christmas! Next chapter up Monday December 28th!


	17. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tragedy strikes the circus.

**Chapter 16**

The big top is collapsing.

Phillip sees it from the railcar where the seven of them have gathered like strangely-met adventurers. The cry that cut Barnum off mid-sentence hangs in the air like a malediction; it’s soon followed by other cries, a series of tumbling dominoes.

Barnum springs through the doorway like a man possessed. “The children,” he shouts over his shoulder. “The children!”

Fear seizes Phillip’s heart. The kids are almost always practicing or playing in the big top at this hour on off nights. He pushes past Lettie and hops to the ground, stumbling in Barnum’s wake. He’s fast but Barnum’s legs are longer, and he chases his friend’s shadow all the way across the field.

Other performers are tumbling out of railcars, gawking at the billowing big top as it slowly folds in on itself. “No!” Henry, one of the jugglers, sprints toward the tent from the dining car. His wife Ilena is close at his heels. “No, please!”

A little body ducks out of the undulating flaps, narrowly avoiding a toppling pole. “Daddy!” Maria screams at Henry; he blows past her, leaving her to be swept into the arms of her mother.

Barnum is only seconds ahead of the juggler; he hits the ground and crawls into the tent, scuffing twin lines in the dirt with his knees. Just before Phillip can follow suit, Constantine bursts from the tent a few feet away, Ian and Marco clutched in his arms. Helen trails him out as a pole groans over her head. “More inside,” the tattooed man yells at Phillip, and that’s all he needs to hear. He dives under the tent a bare second after Henry, almost getting a boot in the chin for his pains.

The big top is massive, hundreds of feet in diameter, with poles easily thirty feet high and desperately heavy. Phillip scrambles on hands and knees as the folds of tent blow and heave around him. The tent is slow in its sinking, a mammoth ship going reluctantly to meet its doom, but now it’s finally giving in; he hears a pole hit the ground with a crack and knows that until the last pole settles, they are all only inches away from death.

“Taylor,” he shouts, warding off the ponderous tent fabric around his head. The commotion outside is suddenly, abruptly muffled. “Taylor, where are you?”

His voice is throttled by the closing air. Soon, if they don’t get out, they will all suffocate in this cheerful, pinstriped death trap, more casualties of Derry’s relentless hunger.

* * *

It happens out of nowhere. One moment, Caroline is helping clean up the detritus of the children’s rehearsal, the next a loud creak signals the collapse of the big top. It happens so slowly, and yet so suddenly, out of nowhere, that for a moment they all stand and stare at the gradually folding poles.

Then Constantine moves, snatching up two of the boys. “Go!” he shouts at the others, and Marie, the jugglers’ little girl, bolts for the exit. “Eli, grab Taylor!”

The young woman has been reading quietly with Taylor on the stands to one side. Now she grabs his hand and yanks him along, her slouch hat forgotten on the bench. Caroline shoves Helen after Constantine. She feels numb and calm, as if this is merely a dream she’s having, disconnected and distant from her waking body.

In slow motion, one of the poles groans toward them. With it comes a corner of the tent. Caroline and Eli dart back, Taylor between them, as Helen whiskers under the pole after Constantine. Ethan, the youngest of the jugglers’ children, scrambles back toward Caroline at the last minute. The heavy tent fabric whooshes over their heads as they stumble away, hands up.

“It’s all coming down on that side!” Eli jerks her chin at the other side of the tent and hands Caroline Taylor’s hand. “That way, darling, and don’t look back.”

She runs back to Ethan, who stands paralysed by the massive pole. His face is shocked and white, his hands limp by his sides. “Go!” Eli screams at Caroline, skidding to a stop by Ethan. Sawdust whirls up around her scuffed boots as she grabs him under the arms. “What are you waiting for? Go, love!”

Unwilling to leave Eli, but terrified for Taylor, Caroline takes his hand and pulls him along. “Come on, come on,” she urges, hearing Eli’s smart footfalls behind her. “Faster, Tay.”

Wafts of air blow past them as the tent continues to fold around them. How it could happen, Caroline isn’t concerned about. Questions will come later. Right now, there’s only the rabbity thudding of her heart and Taylor’s tiny hand in hers as they bolt frantically for the exit.

And as they round the stands toward the back tent flap, there is a clown.

Its grin stretches wide and bloody to either side of its painted nose. Red marks curve over its cheeks and through its eyebrows, bisecting eyes that glow orange in the dark. Its suit is grey and tattered, a filthy relic of a buried past. “Hello, Caroline,” it says, waving one white-gloved hand comically. “Did you get my telegram?”

She slides to a halt, almost twisting her ankle with the abruptness of her halt. Taylor clings to her hand, his expressionless face darkened by evening shadow. In his blue, blue eyes is a spark of dreadful recognition.

“It’s the Snark,” he intones. “It’s the Snark, Caroline.”

Sweat has broken out on her back and palms. She can’t hear Eli now; overhead the last standing poles are struggling to remain upright. Any moment now they will collapse and they’ll be buried alive under endless masses of colourful tarp. “Out of my way,” she says tremulously.

The clown giggles. “But we aren’t acquainted yet,” it says. “My name is Bob Gray, otherwise known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. You’re going to be the star of my circus, and you’ll float, float, float!”

Caroline’s throat goes dry. They can’t go back; behind them is death. And death is standing here with them, stinking of rotten meat and grinning like a corpse. “I have a fork,” Taylor says almost too softly to be heard. “To hunt the Snark.”

Caroline doesn’t pay him any mind. She loves Taylor, God knows that, but sometimes his little mind is unfathomable. “Eli,” she croaks out as the poles sag slowly, inevitably inward. “Eli, help.”

“She can’t help you.” The clown giggles again. “Or is it he? Does he/she even know? Or is she just… _it?_ ”

“What are you?” Caroline screams, her nerve finally breaking. “What do you want?”

The clown’s grin droops. From one corner of its mouth, a long tendril of spittle dangles, longer and longer, until it almost touches the ground. “Fear,” it says hoarsely. “Tasty, tasty fear. Come dance in my circus, Caroline. You’ll like floating in the fear. But first, the little boy who sees.”

It darts forward, its mouth wide and bristling with teeth, and Caroline hugs Taylor, shielding him with her body.

Out of nowhere Eli sprints into view, launching herself. Caroline catches a glimpse of pale, fiery features, and then the clown is snarling, slashing at Eli with jagged claws. Eli hits back with balled fists, furiously lashing out at a creature that defies sanity. “Run!” she screams at Caroline, and now blood spurts from wounds on her face and belly. “Get the hell out of here!”

Behind Caroline, Ethan screams, his small face contorted in terror as the clown becomes a rotting, decaying thing with burning eyes and dripping fangs. In that moment, she understands what madness looks like, graven in the face of a five-year-old boy. And then he runs back into the collapsing tent, running wild as another pole comes down with ponderous finality.

A final childish cry, and then silence.

Caroline grabs Taylor’s hand and rushes for the exit. Behind her, she hears a ripping sound, a thud, a choked gasp. “Fear,” it rasps, and footsteps follow, dragging and heavy, but quick, too quick. “Come back, Caroline. Come back and we’ll dance.”

And now the exit itself is collapsing in on itself as the final poles come down, the night outside lost in the rush of fabric. Behind her, hot breath steams over her shoulder, laden with the reek of the unspeakable. Only a few seconds, and they’ll be buried alive with this thing in a clown costume, buried alive – but not for long.

Very soon, they’ll be ripped apart by It.

In that split second, Caroline makes her choice.

She picks up Taylor under the arms, her well-honed dancer’s muscles flexing under her sleeves. With a yell of effort, she swings him back and then forward, launching him at the circus exit. Something in her back wrenches and she hits her knees, her hands seizing in agony. Taylor hits the dirt just inside the exit and rolls, disappearing into the night outside. Behind her, two clawed hands grasp her shoulders just as the poles whip over her head.

“You wished for me to make you a dancer.” The words are a brutal hiss in her ear. “Now, you’ll dance.”

* * *

Crawling through the tent in the darkness, hearing the hiss of torches gone out and praying it doesn’t all go up in flames around them, Phillip puts his hand right on the face of little Ethan.

“Oh my God.” Phillip pulls at the tiny body. It’s crushed under a pole, lifeless and bloody. Already he can feel that it’s too late. “Oh God, no, no, no. Please no.”

“Phillip?” Barnum’s voice strains back to him; the tent fabric is settling around them. “What is it?”

“I found Ethan!” Phillip covers his mouth with his hand. He can’t bring himself to shout the words that will devastate the boy’s family forever. And even if he could bring himself to it, air is precious under this mass of tent fabric, weighing down his every motion. It was stupid to crawl in here, but what else could they do? He can’t leave until he finds Taylor.

He leaves Henry struggling toward his fallen son, cringing under the sudden howls of agony that accompany his gruesome find. He pushes onward, shoving through hundreds of yards of tarp toward Barnum. Barnum, who is ploughing on like a man possessed. He, after all, is still missing Caroline. _Dear God, how did it come to this? How did the tent come down?_

But in his heart, he knows. He knows they have no need to ask that question.

“Oh, God, no!” Barnum’s yell jerks his attention to his right, and he frantically crawls forward. _Please not Caroline. Please not her._ “No, no!”

“What is it?” Phillip yells back; it feels like trying to speak through a pillow. “Who?”

“Eli!” Barnum’s voice is full of anguish. “She’s torn to pieces.”

“Shit.” Phillip fights past the urge to vomit. Two dead, and they haven’t found either Taylor or Caroline. Thank God, thank God Josie is with Nora. “Any sign of anyone else?”

“Not yet.”

The commotion has swelled again outside, the sign of the circus mobilizing. Phillip thinks he hears the bray of an elephant. In a few minutes, they’ll have the tent rolled back and hauled away to expose whatever lies beneath. Steeling himself, Phillip forces himself onward, slithering over a pole lying in his way. He can’t imagine what it would be like to have the tent come down on a packed crowd.

He finds himself at the far edge of the collapsed tent before he realises it. One hand sticks out into the cool night air and he follows it frantically, poking his head out to gasp in clear cold breaths. Sweat pastes his hair to his forehead as he gulps in fresh air like water. He can see Charity directing the rescue effort, commanding the performers with an ease born of desperate fear.

He’s just about to duck back in and continue his search when he sees Taylor, crouched at the edge of the tent.

His son holds a fork in his hand; moonlight glints off the silver. “Thank you, Lord,” Phillip breathes, tears welling in his eyes. Their losses are already terrible, but this, to see his little boy safe and well, has saved him from the blackest of despair. “Taylor, are you okay?”

The boy just looks at him. And with a shock, Phillip realises that for almost the first time in his life, Taylor is looking him directly in the eye. _You have beautiful eyes, my son_ , he thinks. “It got Caroline,” Taylor says finally.

“Who?”

“It.” Taylor stares at him, the fork held as if to ward off some evil creature. “It took her.”

“You mean the clown?”

“The Snark.” Taylor hugs his knees. “It got Caroline.”

Phillip extracts himself from the tent and crawls shakily over to Taylor. He needs to help move the tent, but first he has to touch, just to know his boy is okay. “Taylor,” he says hoarsely, and reaches out. Predictably, Taylor shrinks back. “Please, Taylor, can I hug you just this once? Can Daddy hug you?”

“No hug, Daddy.” And now Taylor’s gaze is sliding away again, and Phillip grieves for its loss, that lovely stark gaze full of intelligence and innocence. “Caroline’s gone.”

And judging by Barnum’s frantic shouts, swollen with his daughter’s unanswered name, Taylor is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much you all encourage me by your comments and continued interest. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year despite COVID. Next chapter up Monday Jan. 4!


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

The circus tent has been lifted off and folded, the poles layered to one side. Eli’s torn body is clutched in the arms of her cousin Jacks; the teacher’s stern face is clenched, streaked with hard tears. Ethan lies limply in the arms of his mother, who screams disconsolately at the night sky.

“It must have been vandalism.” Phillip has taken over; Barnum is still searching the edge of the Barrens, his lantern swinging and bobbing in the shadows. “We check the tent every morning and night, and it’s been perfectly fine…”

“I don’t care what happened.” Henry’s face is anguished, strangely and severely blank. “My boy is _dead_ , Bailey.”

“I know, Henry. I can’t tell you…”

“Don’t bother.” Henry shoves roughly past him, almost toppling him with the force of his anger. “When you lose _your_ little boy, then you can talk to me.”

Anger swells in Phillip, but he beats it ruthlessly down. No matter that he’s about to lose his wife; Henry is speaking from the raw shock of grief. “Please, Henry, don’t leave,” he says, trailing the man over to his wailing wife. “Don’t go like this. You’ll put your children in more danger if you try the road. The people of this town…”

“Can’t be any worse than what’s happened here tonight.” Henry shrugs off Phillip’s hand on his shoulder. “Go away, Bailey, before I deck you.”

Phillip’s face is still swollen and bruised from his rough treatment at the hands of Rudy Gainer, and he’s not eager to go another round with a bereaved father. He backs off, chest tight as he watches Henry hold his wife and dead son.

Taylor has been following him, as silent as a shadow. Now he tugs on Phillip’s pant leg for attention. Phillip kneels, flinching at the soreness in his body. “What is it, Taylor?”

“Caroline,” the boy whispers.

“We’ll find her, Taylor, I promise.”

“No. She’s in the dark place.”

“We’ll find her.”

“Too old,” Taylor says flatly.

“What do you mean?”

“You.” Taylor sighs, a sound too old for his little body. “Too old for the bad circus.”

And if Phillip understands what that means, he’ll be damned. “Come on,” he says wearily, scooping up his son, who makes only a token protest. “Let’s get you inside where it’s warm.”

* * *

Anne is barely a hint of her old self. Phillip lies down next to her, cradling her hot head on his arm. “I’m here, Anne,” he says softly.

She turns her head a little. It’s an effort. “Phillip,” she rasps in a papery voice. “Is she gone?”

“Who?”

“Caroline.” Anne tries to lick her lips, but her tongue is too dry. “I dreamed she was gone.”

Phillip retrieves the cup of water from the bedstand and holds it to Anne’s mouth. She barely sips at it before her lips go slack. “You have to drink,” he whispers, his chest aching. “Please. You have to stay with me.”

“I dreamed she was gone.”

“She is, Anne.” Phillip lowers his head until their foreheads touch. “I don’t know where, but she is.”

For a long time they lie like that, entwined as Anne’s chest struggles up and down. “They’re leaving,” she rasps again at last.

“Yes.” Phillip kneads his nose against her cheek, willing away the pain in his heart. “More than just Henry and his family. Fear is driving people away.”

“Gramma Ada is here.”

“It’s not really her, Anne. It’s just an illusion.”

Anne turns her glazed brown eyes to his. “Just an illusion,” he repeats as tears well in his eyes. “Just like everything else in this cursed town.” Yes, all illusions: illusions that kill, that strip young and old alike of their lives.

Anne’s eyes linger on his for a moment; then they turn to the window. “The Snark is out there,” she murmurs.

“Yes, it is.”

“It will kill them if they leave.”

“Yes, it will.”

A long moment passes. Then, “Stop them, Phillip.”

If only he knew how.

* * *

Caroline wakes in the pitch dark, in a reek of rotting meat and stinking manure.

She sits up, scrabbling back against a wall. It’s damp and foul, but better than having nothing at her back. She pants, hugging her knees, as water drips around her. Perhaps it’s raining again. It’s been doing that a lot lately.

Her breaths are overheated in the chilly air. She shrinks from unseen phantoms in the darkness, remembering a blood-red grin, the cruel clutch of claws. She remembers throwing Taylor toward the exit, the wash of hot breath over her shoulder, then nothing. Nothing.

Something shifts to her left and she starts, hugging her knees tighter. Whatever it is desists, but it’s a long time before she can steady her heart. She’s alone in this forgotten place, without even the meagre comfort of knowing what her surroundings look like.

 _I should never have pitched that penny down the well_. She lowers her face to her knees and twin tears leak out of her eyes. _I should never have dared to dance._

* * *

Seventeen performers. Seventeen performers are preparing to leave, preferring to take their chances out on the road rather than stay in Derry. Barnum enters his and Charity’s railcar, his mouth a grim slash. He feels the failure to protect his people weighing down on his shoulders, and yet he can’t help the fury that’s building inside him. They need to stick together at a time like this. Not go running off wildly into the night.

“I’m going into that house.” Barnum doesn’t look at Charity, who strokes a sleeping Helen’s head. The girl’s face is streaked with drying tears. “And don’t try to stop me.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Charity meets his eyes, and he sees the same grim desperation in her features. “We both know that’s where it’s taken her.”

Barnum pauses, surprised. Charity’s eyes burn in a way he’s never seen before. But then, no one’s ever kidnapped their daughter before. “I guess I thought I’d meet more resistance,” he says.

“From a bereaved mother? Phin, you’re going after her and so am I. There are no other options. Not for us.”

“Oh, no you’re not,” he begins, but she cuts him off with a fury barely muted for Helen’s sake.

“Phineas Taylor, don’t even try. Some monster is tearing around Derry, killing children, doing as it pleases, and now it murders two of our own and takes our daughter away. And you think I’m going to sit here while you go looking for it?”

“But…”

“I said don’t.” Charity’s hands tremble on Helen’s head, but not with fear. “We let her go into that house, Phin. We let her throw that penny down the well. She’s not dead, Phineas, I know that as well as you do. She’s alive somewhere, alive and terrified, and you’re going to need my help to find her. You know that. You always need my help because that’s how we’re both made. So I’m coming with you.”

Barnum can’t help it. He smiles. “Maybe a better man would argue,” he says. “But you look twice as ferocious right now as I’ll ever be. If that doesn’t scare that son of bitch, it’s sure scaring me.” He reaches out for her cheek and she kisses his palm, fiercely. “So what, we just break into the house? Look for…anything that looks like a monster?”

“There’s no other way to do it. We’ll leave Helen with Lettie, she’ll make sure…”

“No she won’t,” comes a voice from the doorway. Barnum turns sharply to see Lettie there, Charles flanking her. “Because she’s going with you.”

“Letts…” Barnum starts.

“No, Barnum, don’t even try it.” Charles grins darkly up at him. “You’ll get your balls crushed. Besides, I’ll be there to watch her back.”

“We cannot,” Barnum says, and blast it all, he can feel a hysterical giggle starting up in his chest, “go marching on the house like some freakshow cavalry.”

“But that’s what we are.” Charles shrugs. “Listen, Barnum, people are gonna leave if we don’t do something. Maybe they’ll leave anyway, and we’ll be a couple dozen people short by dawn. But we gotta do something. For Caroline, and for the whole circus.”

“And four of us will do the trick, will it?”

“I don’t think so,” Phillip says quietly behind him, and everyone turns. His face is drawn; in his hand is a child’s scrawled picture. Seven children, holding hands in a ring in what looks like the Barrens. “I think we’re going to need a little more than that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up Monday Jan. 11!


	19. Chapter 19

Full disclosure, guys, I was in a major car accident over the weekend. I'm okay, but needless to say, I've been very tied up with that and haven't had the chance to finish this chapter as I wanted as midnight approaches here. I'm really sorry that I couldn't deliver this week, but we're only a couple of chapters away from the end and you'll have an update next Monday for sure. Hang in there, we're almost done!


	20. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Oddities go back to 29 Neibolt one final time.

**Chapter 18**

Men from town have begun to gather at the outskirts of the field. Barnum can see them from where he stands at the window of the Bailey boxcar. Something ugly is about to happen in this town, something even uglier than what’s already happened. “They’re getting ready,” he says quietly. “Ready for something nasty.”

Phillip sits holding Anne’s limp hand, Taylor’s drawing on his lap. The boy has drawn seven children, all clasping hands in a circle. The representation is simple but clear. One of them is a tall boy with red hair; he appears to be the leader. He holds hands with a skinny young boy with crudely-drawn anxious face and a short-haired girl on his other side. Holding the girl’s other hand is an overweight boy who also links fingers with a curly-haired boy with a beanie. Next to that boy, an overweight lad closes the circle with a kid with glasses.

The number of the children is not lost on Barnum.

“Taylor says they’re us.” Phillip sounds weary beyond belief. “They don’t really look like us, though, so I don’t know…”

“We have to do something soon.” W.D. is restless, standing at Barnum’s shoulder glancing now and then at the torchlit crowd in the darkness. “Our people are leaving and something’s happening in this town. It’s gonna happen tonight, do you feel it?”

Barnum does feel it. He feels it thrumming in his bones like the vibrations of an approaching train. “I’m going to the house,” he says, turning to face the small group of Oddities. “We leave the kids with those we trust to stay and march on 29 Neibolt.”

“What about Anne?” Phillip murmurs. “I can’t leave her.”

“We need you, Phillip.” Lettie rests a plump hand on his shoulder. “You can’t do her any good by being here, but you can do some good by helping us.”

“And what about this?” Phillip gestures at the crayon drawing. “What if something…someone…is trying to tell us through Taylor that we need all seven of us?”

“We can’t do anything about that.” Charity speaks softly from where she laves Anne’s forehead with a cool cloth. “We’ll have to go without Anne and hope for the best.”

Discomforting silence falls over the railcar. They’re waiting for him to make the final call, Barnum knows, just as they always do. “We go without Anne,” he decides at last. “The six of us. And we hope that it’s good enough.”

“Good enough to do what?” Charles asks darkly. “What are we tryin’ to do here, Barnum?”

It’s a good question. Are they out to kill a monster? Are they out to stop would-be lynchers? Only one thing is certain for Barnum: they are trying to get his daughter back. “I guess we’ll find out when we get there,” he says with more certainty than he feels. That was how he started the circus, after all; no real certainty of success, just fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants hope against hope that he wouldn’t bring utter ruin on himself and his young family. And truth be told, here in Derry he’s coming awfully close.

* * *

Barnum feels very old as he stands in front of 29 Neibolt. Rain and wind whistle desolately around him. The darkness over Derry is complete; not a soul stirs except for the ominous line of lights across the field. “This better work,” Charles mutters from his right. “Whatever it is we’re doing.”

“It will.” Mustering his courage, Barnum pushes through the screaky iron gate. The others file after him in silence. The front door looms over them, mocking, daring them to enter. Somewhere inside, his daughter waits for her father to come and rescue her. Drawing a deep breath, Barnum pushes open the door.

The smell hits him right away, worse than it’s ever been. It’s the smell of some unspeakable monster brooding in its lair, the reek of kills strewn at its feet. Gagging a little, Barnum pushes on, leading his little troupe further in. They look into the sitting room and parlour as they pass, but nothing appears to be inside.

At the end of the hall is the mirror over the fireplace. _GOOD CHEER GOOD FRIENDS_ it proclaims with blistering glee. Barnum is taken by a sudden desire to smash the words to bits. In this house, cheer and friendship are mockeries of what they should be. Nothing more than parlour tricks.

“Where are you?” he shouts, and the walls suddenly seem to lean in. “Come out here and face me, you bastard!”

Silence.

“Caroline!” Barnum tries next. He raises his voice, but it seems like the house is trying to suffocate him, because so little comes out. “Caroline, are you here?”

“I’m here, Daddy!” The cry echoes through the house, _shivers_ through it; Barnum whirls toward the source, at the top of the stairs. “Please, help me!”

“Upstairs!” he shouts, darting forward, but W.D. grabs his arm.

“It came from the kitchen.” W.D. points further down the hall. “I heard her, plain as day.”

“You’re both deaf,” Charles scoffs. “It came from the parlour.”

“I heard the kitchen,” Lettie objects.

“No, it was definitely from upstairs,” Charity argues.

They stand blinking at each other through the dusty air.

“It’s the acoustics,” Barnum says finally. “Damn house, nothing sounds right in here. Okay, we split up. Charity, you’re with me. Phillip, Charles, check out the parlour. Lettie, W.D., kitchen.”

With that, he bounds up the staircase, leaving Charity to rush after him.

“I don’t think we should split up,” Phillip says weakly, but Barnum is long gone. With a sigh, he tucks Taylor’s drawing of the kids back into his coat. “Come on, Charles, let’s get this over with.”

* * *

“Help,” Caroline shouts, banging at a lead pipe, but all it does is clang mockingly. She bangs at it harder. “Dad, Mom, I’m down here!”

“I’m down here,” a voice mimics behind her, and she whirls with a scream. “I’m down here. Dear little Caroline, they’ll never find you in the Penny Well. Scream all you like!”

Caroline flattens herself against the sewer wall. Everything narrows to the red greasepaint grin and the crooked, deformed teeth of the clown. “You’re not real,” she hisses. “You’re just an illusion!”

“Is this an illusion?” With a cackle, the clown grabs the front of her dress and hoists her high. She screams, kicking out to no avail. “Dance with me, Caroline, like we’ve never danced before!”

“What do you want from me?” she gasps, struggling. “Why me?”

“Because I love little girls, Caroline.” The clown grins, and twin ropes of drool unfurl form the corners of its mouth. “I love little girls that dance. And you and I will dance the _whoooole_ night away.”

“Don’t kill my family!”

“I’m going to _eat_ your family.” The clown brings her close, and she flinches at its foul breath. “Eat them all up,” it whispers.

“No!”

“Oh yes!” The clown hoists her again, shaking her a little. “They’re too old, Caroline. They’re too old to save you. They don’t _believe_.”

“My father believes,” Caroline whispers. “And he can make anyone believe anything.”

“I’ll tell you what he’ll believe.” The clown’s face changes, elongating, the jaw dropping and opening, and suddenly Caroline is staring in horror down a toothy throat at dancing orange lights. _The deadlights_ , she thinks, and knows she’s horribly, horribly right. “He’ll believe in madness,” the voice whispers from deep in the throat, and then she’s falling, falling into the insanity of eternity.

* * *

Barnum reaches the second floor, pausing for only a moment to gain his bearings. Then he darts to one of the doors, reaching for the handle.

“Phineas, stop!” Charity’s boots thud on the floorboards as she gains the landing, breathing hard. Her hair flies in silky strands around her flushed face. “Don’t rush into anything.”

“I have to get her back, Chairy.” Barnum opens the door, poking his head cautiously inside. “No matter…”

The room is full of clown mannikins.

He startles backward like a man who’s had dust thrown in his face. Nothing inside is moving, not even breathing as far as he can see, but that’s the worst part: the sight of all those grinning, unmoving clowns in a room as dark as death. “Caroline?” he calls uncertainly.

“In here, Daddy.” An arm flops out from behind one of the clowns, fingers wiggling. “Help me, I’m hurt!”

Barnum darts over, reaching down with soothing murmurs to grasp the hand. It’s cold. He tugs hard, desperate to get to his daughter, and hears a strangled giggle.

What comes out from behind the clown is just an arm. Nothing more.

With a scream he tosses it down. “You sick bastard,” he yells, whirling for the door. What fills his vision is one of the clowns, suddenly alive and filling his vision with orange eyes and dripping fangs.

“Gotcha,” it giggles, and raises its claws to rake his throat.

"Stop!"

The clown looks over at Charity, who has grabbed an abandoned wooden strut from the chaotic debris in the room. She swings the strut up to her shoulder, as if preparing to belt a baseball. She’s rain-drenched, hair hanging in unkempt wisps around her face, cheeks blazing. She looks fearsomely, fully alive, and Barnum reverences her with a sudden sharp cramp in his gut. “You won’t touch him," she spits.

“You’ll lose him,” the creature says, its face split with a screaming grin. “You’ll _fear!_ ”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, but you will! I’ll _make_ you!”

“Come here, then.” Charity’s eyes glow feverishly. “Make me.”

Every hair on Barnum’s body rises in salute. The air seems to crackle with electricity; the golden strands around Charity’s flushed cheeks float, strangely animated, in the still air.

And with a furious scream, the clown folds in on itself and goes still.

* * *

Down in the parlour, Phillip and Charles search the room, looking behind ragged curtains and under mildewy furniture in vain.

“I know I heard her here.” Charles shoves at the couch in frustration. It barely moves an inch. “I heard her!”

“I know, I did too.” Phillip stands helplessly in the middle of the room. Under his coat, Anne’s shawl is a comforting warmth against his chest. “We shouldn’t have split up. I think it’s playing with us.”

“No shit,” Charles growls. “This is place is creeping me out, let’s go find W.D. and Lettie.”

Something thumps from out in the hall.

Slowly, Phillip turns his head. He can hear the tendons creaking in his neck. “What,” he says hoarsely, “was that?”

Charles’ face has gone pale. “I don’t know,” he says, huddling close to Phillip’s hip.

There’s another thump. Then another. Then another. A breathy sob, like a man drowning in sorrow, and then suddenly a tattered figure lurches in, a hand over one of its eyes.

“Any eyes to spare?” it whimpers, staggering toward them. Its face is filthy, something milky running down it cheek from under its hand. “I can’t see a thing with this damn hole in my face.”

“Shit!” Charles screams, his arms clamping around Phillip’s leg. “It’s the One-Eyed Yokel!”

As Phillip stands, stunned to immobility, the Yokel pulls its hand away from its face. A hole where its right eye used to be squirms with maggots, running with viscous fluid. “Got an eye to spare?” the Yokel moans, flapping its hands piteously at them. “Just one eye?”

“Holy _shit!_ ” Charles screams. His eyes are bulging with fear; Phillip has never seen Charles afraid of anything, ever. “Holy _shit!_ ”

“Just one eye,” the Yokel whimpers as Phillip’s hand scrabbles back over the musty surface of the desk behind them. “Just one…”

Phillip’s hand closes over a rusty quill. With a sob of revulsion, he brings it forward and stabs it deep into the Yokel’s good eye.

The monster rears back. Phillip loses his grip on the quill, watching as the Yokel claws at his face. “My one eye,” it roars. “You poked out my one eye!”

“That’s right,” Phillip hears himself saying. His voice is oddly calm, at odds with the terror drenching his entire body. “And now you’re the No-Eyed Yokel, which doesn’t exist at all. So, I guess, neither do you.”

For a ludicrous moment, the Yokel stills, blinking eyeless sockets at them in the wake of this logic. “You heard him,” Charles shouts, his fingers digging into Phillip’s trouser leg. “Get the hell out of here!”

There are a few seconds of silence almost as horrible as the monster itself. And then, with a snarl, it simply winks out of existence.

“You know, Phil,” Charles says after a long moment, resting his forehead against Phillip’s hip, “I think I just creamed my pants.”

* * *

The kitchen is empty. They’ve firmly established this. And yet Lettie is so sure she heard Caroline calling. She turns in place, grimacing at the innumerable stains on the counters and floors and broken old kitchen table. “I guess that’s it then,” she says, disappointed. “We should get back to Barnum and the others.”

“What about down there?” W.D. points at the door leading to the basement. The night seems thicker down there, where they went with Red Henson just a few days ago in daylight. “I bet that’s where she is.”

“It’s where _it_ is.” Lettie lays a hand on his arm. “Don’t do anything stupid, honey.”

“What’s stupid is running around this house while that thing has its way.” W.D. cocks his head. “Did you hear that?”

Lettie listens. Slowly, together they turn to look at one of the cupboards. Something is scratching on the inside, bumping at the door. “Don’t open it,” Lettie says automatically. “That’s hell in there.”

“Caroline?” W.D. calls, but he’s backed away, pulling Lettie with him. His normally dark face is pasty.

A snuffling sound comes from the cupboard. Then a whine. “Sounds like a dog,” Lettie whispers. “Could a dog be…?”

And then a massive black hound bursts out of the cupboard, shattering the wood to bits, its jowls drawn back over jagged, broken teeth. Its gums run with blood. With a howl, it launches straight at W.D.

Without thinking, Lettie grabs a discarded chair.

“Back!” she screams, holding it between them. The hound hits the chair full-tilt, tangling in the legs and thudding to the floor. W.D. grabs the back of the chair and together they shove the hound toward the basement door. “Back, you devil!”

The hound snarls and snaps, spittle flying from its mouth. It stands at least as high as W.D.’s waist. Lettie struggles to push it back, bringing her considerable weight to bear. A few drops of saliva land on her hand and instantly burn, as if acidic. “Back,” she cries, and with groans and pants they force the hound toward that basement blackness.

It makes one final effort to lunge. As it leaves the ground, W.D. shouts, “ _Now!_ ” and they shove the chair with all their strength. With a yip unbefitting its titanic stature, the dog tumbles down the steps, disappearing into the blackness.

Lettie waits for it to recover and come bounding back up. But nothing moves in the darkness.

“And now,” W.D. says hoarsely when their breathing begins to slow, “you know what escaping from slavery was like.”

* * *

Barnum and Charity reach the ground floor just as Phillip and Charles dart out of the parlour. From the kitchen, W.D. and Lettie hustle toward them. “Okay, no more splitting up,” Barnum says, taking in the terrified faces around him. “Whatever we do, we do together.”

To his credit, Phillip doesn’t say _I told you so_ , though Barnum wouldn’t hold it against him if he did.

“Now what?” Charles pants, looking up at Barnum with wild eyes.

“We have to go deeper. Down to the Penny Well.”

“And _then_ what?”

“Then we…”

Barnum never gets to finish his sentence. Without warning, a surge like electricity snaps through him, throwing his whole body into a frantic arch. Every nerve is on fire, but oddly, it doesn’t hurt. On the contrary, he feels more alive than he ever has.

“What’s happening?” he hears Charity scream, but it’s almost lost in the exultant thrumming in his head. “What _is_ this?”

“It’s power,” W.D. shouts. “Power from outside.” He’s folded over his knees, every tendon in his neck standing out like cords. “It’s too much!”

“We have to do like the kids in the picture,” Phillip shouts. He’s holding Anne’s shawl, his hair buffeted by an invisible force. “Hold hands, everyone! Quick, hold hands!”

All Barnum can manage is a nod. Holding hands is the absolute extent of what he will be able to do in this state. He reaches out blindly and grasps Charity’s left hand; in his own left, he finds Phillip’s. Phillip is holding one end of Anne’s shawl; W.D. grabs the other end and takes Charles’ hand. Charles links with Lettie, who closes the circle with Charity.

A closed circle. A conduit of power.

 _This can’t be happening._ The words rise automatically in Barnum’s mind, the kneejerk reaction of his adulthood. _It’s impossible_.

And just like that, he knows what’s been holding them back in this place.

“I believe,” he screams at the ceiling, the corners of his mouth drawn down with effort. Around him, the delicious power swirls, binding them together, making them one. “I believe in the impossible! Say it, everyone!”

“I believe,” five other voices cry, in sync and oh so beautiful. The power pulses and surges. “I believe!”

“I believe,” Barnum says, almost weeping with the force of the words. The power sings in his veins like liquor. “I believe in monsters. I believe in monster-killers. I believe I can bring my little girl home.”

It’s not enough, somehow; suddenly, in his spirit he knows they are not going to be slaying a monster tonight. But maybe it’s going to be just enough to save themselves from whatever holds Derry captive. Maybe it’s just enough to save his daughter.

 _There will be others to kill this monster._ He hears the voice in his mind as clearly as if it’s speaking to his ears. _What you are doing today is leaving footprints for them to follow. Seven sets of footprints for seven other Oddities. Maybe you can’t kill it, but you can weaken it. And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough._

With a crescendo that cuts their legs out from under them, the power suddenly crests and dies.

* * *

Barnum comes back to himself on his hands and knees. He’s dropped Charity and Phillip’s hands; his head aches like a muscle torn out of shape. Slowly, he raises his head. He can’t see any of the others.

 _Is this how we die, then? In some kind of psychedelic accident?_ Feeling weak and disoriented, he reaches out for the hateful fireplace and pulls himself to his feet. When his head rises above the mantle to look in the mirror, he freezes where he stands.

He’s a teenager again, all youthful determination and gangly height, his face smooth of the lines that have long marked it. He’s thinner, as he was in his late teens, but his chest and shoulders have already begun to broaden, harbingers of the sturdy man he will become.

With a trembling hand, he reaches out to trace the shape of his angular face in the mirror. “What happened?” he whispers to no one. “What happened to me?”

“P.T.?” a young voice says wonderingly behind him. “Is that you?”

Barnum turns quickly from his reflection. Behind him is Phillip, but not as he’s known him for the past several years. This Phillip is a pale-faced twelve or thirteen, dark hair falling over his brow, cheeks just starting to lose their childish roundness. His blue eyes gaze, bewildered, up at him. “Hey,” Barnum says, a little smile crooking his lips. “You’re small. Er.”

“And now you’re _really_ tall.” Phillip gawks in that endearing way young boys have. “P.T., what happened?”

“I think I’ve lost a couple of inches, to be honest.” Ignoring the deeper aspects of Phillip’s query, Barnum studies himself again in the mirror. “Didn’t get my growth spurt until I was almost an adult.”

“It shocked me when I saw him for the first time as a grown man.” They turn at Charity’s voice. She’s lovely, a willowy young woman with tumbling golden hair. “Time changes so much about us.”

Barnum’s heart nearly stops in his chest. Charity is a beautiful woman, no matter what her age, but to see her like this, so young and fresh…He never saw her at seventeen. He was working the railroad, not to be reunited with her until they were both in their twenties.

“You look a little awestruck.” Charity comes to him and takes his hand. Her smile is wistful. “We’ve seen years on top of years, haven’t we, Phin?”

“That doesn’t make any difference to me,” he says truthfully. “It’s just…” Then, without continuing, he lifts her hand and kisses her knuckles. _We were so young once_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t. She understands. She always does.

He almost doesn’t see Charles at all, wouldn’t have if the little man hadn’t stepped out right in front of him. “Great,” Charles grouses, glaring up at Phillip, who still manages to tower over him. “Had to go and make me even _shorter_ , didn’t you?”

“Sorry,” Phillip apologises, a sheepish smile resting on his slightly crooked lips. “Holding hands just seemed like the right thing to do.”

“It was. Somehow.” Barnum looks over as W.D. and Lettie emerge from the shadows. W.D. looks about Phillip’s age, but stronger. Lettie’s teenage figure is still stocky, but her waist is considerably shrunken. Her beard, however, is as full as ever.

For a minute they just stand there, taking each other in. And then a seventh voice says, “I think I’m supposed to meet you here.”

At the high, cautious voice, they turn as one. A young girl of ten or eleven stands in the entryway, awkward and shy. Her skin is a lovely toffee, her hair a waterfall of raven curls. She’s thin, far too thin, but a doe’s grace infuses every movement.

Phillip’s young cry of joy pierces straight to Barnum’s heart. Abandoning his usual reserve, Phillip runs to meet the girl, throwing his arms around her. “Anne,” he cries as she clasps him back, thin arms squeezing his neck. “You’re here!”

“Yes.” Anne’s eyes are cinched tight. “I’m afraid, Phillip. So afraid, but not of that…that _beast_. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you again.”

“You won’t leave me.” Barnum can hear the hitch in Phillip’s childish voice. “I’m going to save you.”

A tiny smile curves Anne’s lips. “Really?”

“Really.” Phillip pulls back and looks back at Barnum; heartbreaking belief stands starkly on his young features. “Right, P.T.?”

“Right,” Barnum confirms throatily.

Anne tangles her arms from Phillip’s neck and goes to W.D. next. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, nestling against his chest. He hugs her as if he will never let her go. “I tried to be strong.”

“You _were_ strong, baby girl.” W.D.’s young voice is husky with unshed tears. “You gave birth to a beautiful little girl. And you’re going to live.”

Anne nods and sniffs, looking at Barnum. “I’m glad I’m here,” she says in a tired voice. “Even if we’re going to die here. I – I’d rather die with all of you than alone.”

“I don’t think we’re going to die.” The power is gone, but Barnum can feel tendrils still curling around his soul, and he knows one thing for sure: he _believes_ they can do this. “I think we’re stronger now, even though we’re physically weaker. I think that’s the point of all this.”

“Children believe,” Charity murmurs, nodding. “That’s why they’re so susceptible to the clown. But maybe that’s why they also know it can be killed.”

“Exactly.” Barnum looks around at them, these children who are not children, who have followed him into this house at his behest, into this house of darkness. “I’m going down into the Penny Well, and I’m going to find Caroline,” he says. His voice is heavy, and yet for the first time he feels real hope. “Will you come with me?”

They all nod, but they don’t need to. Barnum knows the answer without asking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are all so awesome, especially with the missed chapter last week! Next chapter will be up Monday January 25!


	21. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Oddities mean business.

They go into the black.

Barnum descends into the well first, using an old rope they tie to one of the basement beams. It uncurls far below him into the vast darkness of the well, beyond of the reach of the grimy lantern they have lit.

They discovered a hole in the side of the well, and that’s what Barnum aims for now. It’s a relief to know they don’t have to go all the way to the bottom, not that their rope would even take them that far. Barnum extends one foot and snags the edge of the hole, straining to pull himself in. His teenage muscles are springy and fresh, but underdeveloped, and it’s a relief to crawl into the tunnel and take off the pressure.

Charity descends next. He snags her around the waist, pulling her into the tunnel. It yawns behind them, leading God knows where. _Into the black_ , he thinks as Phillip shimmies down the rope. The words seem oddly familiar, like a lyric half-forgotten, banging around the furthest recesses of his mind. Or maybe it’s just a thought from Outside, like the power that turned them into what they are now. _Out of the blue and into the black._

Anne is next down, the smallest of them all but wiry and strong. Lettie struggles the most with her extra weight, but even so, she makes it safely to the ledge where they are huddled in the shadows. Charles comes down next, sliding awkwardly into Barnum’s outstretched hands, and then W.D., limber and nimble.

“Okay.” Barnum’s voice echoes eerily off the walls of the tunnel. “Everybody follow me. Stick together, we don’t know what’s ahead.”

He struggles through the tight crowd of his friends – his elbows are gangly and sharp, but at least he’s lost some of his breadth – and lowers himself to a larger tunnel beyond. Not for the first time, he wonders at the sophistication of Derry’s sewer system. The pipes here are clay and just barely large enough for him to stand up, but many large cities wouldn’t be able to boast such amenities.

_It’s proud of its home. Its mansion, really. The finest shithouse in America._

The water is ankle-deep and foul. Barnum hears muffled groans behind him as the others file after him, dipping their feet in the warm, slightly sludgy water. “Greywater,” Phillip moans, his young voice endearingly pathetic. “And shit. Pissy shit. We’re wading in pissy shit.”

Barnum grins to himself. It’s endlessly ironic to him that Phillip’s vulgar side is almost always unleashed by his prissy side. “Pass me the lantern,” he orders in a hushed voice, and it’s handed up to him. “And keep your voices down.”

As a precaution, it’s virtually useless. Their every movement rebounds off the pipe walls in sonorous echoes; whatever is in here certainly knows of their presence. Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry. “Hold onto each other,” Charity whispers; her voice sighs back at them from far down the tunnel. “We don’t want to lose anyone.”

Barnum feels her warm hand clench around the back of his coat. He proceeds, holding the lantern before him. Shadows flicker and gambol before him. Their defiant bravery must be amusing. Seven not-children, sloshing through human waste in the dark without a single clue where to go. And indeed, soon they come to a fork in the pipes.

Barnum stops, undecided, and the line behind him ripples to a halt. He can hear Charity breathing behind him. “Where now,” he mutters, swinging the lantern first right, then left. There seems to be no distinction between the pipes. Nothing, at least, that would tell him which is likelier to lead to a monster.

Finally, W.D. speaks up from the back of the line. Brave man, to take up the rear in a place like this. “Which one is bigger?”

“Why?”

“Probably the bigger one would go deepest. Or farthest.”

“You’re probably right.” Frustrated, Barnum lowers the lantern. “Pity they’re the same bore.”

“Maybe you should follow your heart,” Charles suggests. If Barnum could see, he has no doubt Charles would be grinning. “It’s always right, ain’t you never heard that?”

“This is no time for jokes,” Lettie scolds from just in front of him.

“Why not, you wanna save them for Pennywise?”

“Wait a minute.” Phillip wades up to stand beside Barnum. In the lantern’s dim glow, his face looks washed out. “We want to end up under the Barrens, right?”

“Why?” Barnum asks again.

“Well, the whole town drains into it.” Phillip shrugs. “That’ll be the deepest part of the sewers. That’s probably its home base.”

The logic is sound, and no one is offering a better suggestion. “Which way, then?” Barnum asks, looking around ludicrously as if expecting to see a patch of sky with a conveniently visible moon. “I mean, which direction are we facing?”

After only a moment’s thought, Phillip points right. “It’s that way,” he says. “I’m sure of it.”

“You’re really sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

After a pause, Barnum nods once. “Okay,” he says. “We go right.” He moves forward and the line falls in after him.

They’ve passed another fork, taking the slight right instead of the sharp left, when Barnum’s foot hits something in the water and he goes down.

The lantern goes out with a sharp hiss and breaks on the pipe floor. A shard of glass slices Barnum’s right hand almost painlessly, and he jerks it out of the water. “Crap,” he mutters, cradling it. He can’t tell how bad it is in the dark, but he can feel the warmth of blood flowing down over his wrist. “Just what I needed.”

“Are you okay?” Anne asks softly.

“Yeah, and there goes our light.” Barnum sits back on his heels for a moment; Charity’s hand is still clenched on the back of his jacket. “Sorry, guys. I tripped on something. Watch out, it’s right…”

He puts out one hand to find it again and feels something hard and round under his hand. It’s almost pitch-black in the tunnel, but he doesn’t need to see what he’s touching. He stumbles to his feet with a curse, almost knocking over Charity. “It’s a body,” he says tonelessly, struggling to bring himself under control. With the return of his youthful self has come the old erratic emotions and impulses, not that his adult self was ever much good at suppressing those. “It’s a dead body.”

Groans. Under the sour sewer-smell, which is bad enough, something else has been rising, something like long and sightless decay. Now they know why. “Please, let’s just keep going,” Charity says, tugging on his coat. “Please. If there are bodies, there are bodies, but let’s not stand among them.”

Guiding them to the pipe wall and feeling with one hand in front of him, Barnum leads them around the body and the broken lantern. As they slosh through the sluggish, unmentionable flow, he feels other objects brush his ankles more than once. He tries to ignore them, but it’s hard, knowing what they might be. He can’t help pitying Phillip and Anne, who must be up to their calves in greywater, not to mention poor Charles, who’s probably soaked to his waist.

After several minutes, Anne speaks. “Is it just me, or is the tunnel getting lighter?”

It is. Not knowing whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, Barnum hurries on, pulling the line of his friends after him. “Not so fast,” Charity hisses, but then they’re spilling from the mouth of the pipe and into a cavernous room, grated some fifty feet above them opening into what is probably the Barrens. Rainwater spills in mini torrents to the ground, evidence of an ongoing mighty deluge.

It’s been raining a lot in Derry lately. This, however, sounds like it could send Noah’s Ark on a merry trip.

The grate, however, isn’t enough to provide the sickly glow in the room. The moon is obscured behind the clouds. No, the light seems to seep from the walls like poison, the greyish green of dead and moudly things below the earth. In this light, Barnum can see the whole room.

A massive sideshow caravan sits in the centre. _Pennywise the Dancing Clown_ , it proclaims. Around it, towering almost to the grate itself, is a column of toys and clothes. Floating in eerie rings around the column are dead children.

It’s safe to say they’ve found Its nest.

It’s Lettie who first sees Caroline.

“Barnum! Charity!” Lettie points, horrified, into the air. “Look!”

Caroline is suspended some twenty feet in the air. She floats gently, the hem of her dress undulating slightly in an unfelt breeze. Her face is tilted up as if in prayer to the god of the sewers. She seems unharmed. But…she’s floating.

She’s _floating_.

Barnum runs without thinking. He lunges for his daughter, but his fingers fall pathetically short of her shoes. W.D. is there in a heartbeat, the next tallest among them. “On my shoulders,” Barnum pants, kneeling. “Quick.” W.D. climbs up.

Even with their combined height, Caroline is out of reach. “I can’t get her, man,” W.D. pants. Barnum struggles to support the stocky youth on his shoulders; his newfound energy and sprightliness is appreciated, but he’s lost much of the sheer power he gained from the railway work in his twenties. “Maybe we can haul over some of that crap to stand on.”

“Maybe you could!” The voice is a high giggle, somehow childish and sinister at once. “Or maybe I could get her down for you!”

W.D. slides unceremoniously from Barnum’s shoulders to the ground. Phillip and Lettie steady him. “What the hell,” he breathes.

It stands there, its disguises shed. Pennywise the Dancing Clown leers from in front of the caravan, its freakishly long arms dangling at its sides. Barnum feels sick at the sight of the garish orange hair and disjointed teeth. This monster had its hands on his daughter. And now she’s floating midair, unresponsive, as if in a deep dream.

Or as if already dead, lost to them forever.

“Let her down.” Barnum’s voice is a growl. “Now.”

“Or what?” Pennywise giggles again, covering its mouth with its gloved hands. There’s nothing happy about its costume now; it’s faded and torn, as if exhumed from a coffin. “Will you kill old Pennywise?”

 _No, I don’t think we’re going to do that today. But maybe we can hurt you._ “Or I’ll come over there and rearrange your face,” Barnum says, bunching one hand into a fist. Behind him, he hears the others stir. “It could sure use some improvement.”

“Silly little Penny-ass.” Pennywise sounds mournful, but threads of glee are stitched through its tone. “Never had any friends. And now you’re going to get these ones killed. Is that what you really want? Hm?”

Thunder cracks overhead, echoing around the room. Anne jumps with a little scream; Barnum feels a long trail of sweat trace his back. “I don’t know what’s wrong with my daughter,” he says. “And I don’t know why you want her. But I’m not letting you take her.”

“But I already have.” Pennywise’s eyes widen in mock-surprise. “She’s in the deadlights now, Penny-ass. Screaming for Daddy in the deadlights.”

In his mind, Barnum seems to see a sudden explosion of orange, horrible and fatal. Just a flash and it’s gone, but it’s enough for him to know: the deadlights would drive anyone to insanity. Because they _are_ insanity, the end of all real light and happiness beyond the rim of the universe. “What did you do?” he shouts.

But Pennywise just laughs. Which is all that really needs to be said.

* * *

Caroline isn’t in the deadlights.

She’s on the very verge of them, her toes teasing the hot edges. She’s dangling on the precipice of hell, holding onto the last vestiges of sanity with her fingernails, when she hears the voice.

It should be familiar, she thinks, and yet it’s not quite like anything she’s heard before. Similar to Phillip, adult and male, but with a gentle drawl that doesn’t quite match. Toneless, and yet soft and soothing. Thoughtful, but monochromatic.

And it’s calling her.

“Come back, Caroline. Come back out of the deadlights.”

She strains to see, but all she can look at is those deadly orange lights, pulsing to the sound of eternal screams. “Help me,” she cries, reaching back mentally for a hand that isn’t there. “Please, whoever you are, help!”

“I’m Taylor.” The voice is so calm, so level, and she almost weeps to hear it amid the cacophony of despair. “Grown-up Taylor. I drew the picture of the seven children.”

Caroline isn’t sure what that means. She can only stare hopelessly down into the depth of hell. “Taylor, help me. I can’t pull back on my own.”

“Can’t you?” The words are said conversationally; unless in the grips of a meltdown, Taylor is almost maddeningly level-headed. “Hm. I thought you could.”

“I can’t do anything.” Crying now, Caroline feels her grip slip just a little bit more. “I ruined my ballet. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to perform at the circus. And now I’m going to be lost in the deadlights.”

“You saved me.” Taylor sounds low-grade amazed, which is as close to expressing the emotion as he ever gets. “You stood up to Pennywise. That’s why he took you. Also, because he wants to use you in his circus. You definitely can do some things worth doing.”

“But I’m nobody!” The fact that she’s talking to a four-year-old doesn’t seem real. If Grown-up Taylor is a true reflection of who he will be in fifteen years, he’ll be someone truly worth knowing. “What can I possibly bring?”

“I always ask myself the same thing.” Taylor’s sigh seems to drift against her back. “People only like me because I’m smart. But, I’m _really_ smart,” he adds after a moment of reflection. “And you’re a really good dancer. So maybe we can just be happy that we have those things and stop worrying that we’re not like everybody else.”

“I wish I was more like my dad,” Caroline bursts out. There, it’s out. “I’m only confident and strong when I’m performing. Nowhere else.”

“Yeah, me neither.” It may be her imagination, but she seems to feel warmth against her neck, like the breaths of another human. “I think it’s okay, though.”

“I’m almost in the deadlights, Taylor. I don’t think I’m going to be okay.”

“Almost.” Now she’s sure of that warmth, caressing and reassuring. “Not quite. It’s just a Snark, Caroline. A Boojum, sure, which is the dangerous kind, but you can kill it if you believe you can. Oh, and also if you have a fork.”

She actually manages to smile, and suddenly her grip on sanity seems a little more secure. “I don’t have a fork on me, Taylor.”

“I know. That’s why I brought mine.”

And now giggles are piling up in her throat, half-hysterical but beautiful to hear. As if astonished to hear it in such a place of despair, the screams below her slacken slightly. “You really brought a fork?”

“Sure. It’s clean, too.” Taylor says this with such earnest conviction that she bubbles over with laughter. She gives herself another push, and she slides further away from the deadlights, her toes clear of the orange light. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because…I don’t know. Does it matter whether it’s clean?”

“It does to me. And that’s what matters, I think. That the conditions of our own beliefs are met.”

It’s far too philosophical a thing to be contemplating on the verge of hell, so it’s a good thing she understands what he means. “It kills monsters because you say it does.”

“Something like that.”

She pushes again, grimly. And now she’s sliding back more easily, putting distance between herself and those horrible screams. “I think it’s working, Taylor!”

“What is?”

“Laughter!”

A puzzled silence. “Do you need me to laugh with you?” Taylor says at length. “I can try.”

And that sets her off again, worse than before, until she’s crying with the force of her laughter. The thought of Taylor bursting out in a raucous belly-laugh is too much. Now she doesn’t even have to push; she’s sliding back from the brink of her own accord. “I think it has to be genuine,” she gasps, holding her sides. “And you don’t do hilarity very well.”

“I find lots of things funny.” Taylor doesn’t sound offended, though he probably wouldn’t even if he was offended. “I just laugh in my mind.”

“That’s okay.” Caroline wipes away tears. “I’m laughing enough for both of us.”

“Good. I don’t usually make people laugh.”

“You make me smile, though.” Caroline releases a pair of giggles. “You’re a very sweet boy.”

Taylor seems to consider this for a moment. “I do love, you know,” he says finally. “Even if people think I don’t.”

“I know you do.” Caroline strains to see behind her, but all she can see is blackness and a single pinpoint of white light far in the distance. “I know.”

“I can give you the fork if you come far enough back. Keep laughing.”

“Can you tell me a joke?”

“What joke?”

“Any joke. Something I haven’t heard before.”

And isn’t this the best defiance? That here, dangling over hell, they are giggling like children?

Taylor hesitates for just a moment. “Okay,” he says cautiously. “How do you get an elephant in a tree?”

“I don’t know,” Caroline says, trying not to think about the screams. “How _do_ you get an elephant in a tree?”

“Plant an acorn under the elephant. Fifty years…” Taylor makes the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “Elephant in a tree.”

It’s the stupidest joke she’s ever heard, and her father has told some cataclysmically bad ones.

She howls with glee until she can’t breathe.

And rushes steadily back toward the white light.

* * *

“We’re not afraid of you.” Barnum raises both his fists now. “We proved that upstairs. _You’re_ afraid, because you know we believe.”

“In what?” the clown mocks. “In saving Caroline? She’s dead, Penny-ass!”

“Don’t call me that.” Barnum braces his lean teenager’s body. “Everyone, charge it.”

Then he follows his own command.

He doesn’t need to look back to know that they’re right behind him. He simply swings one bunched fist at Pennywise’s red nose, praying it will do some actual damage.

It connects with bone-shattering force. Pennywise spins and shrieks as Barnum’s momentum takes him further, right into the caravan. He almost busts his own nose on the side. Behind him, he hears the sounds of battle.

He grabs the first thing his hand falls on, which happens to be a little girl’s decrepit rocking-chair. He has no time to mourn its late owner as he picks it up and swings it, shattering it against Pennywise’s back. The clown snarls, dark fangs sprouting from its mouth, but before it can bite, Charity’s heeled boot slams into its jaw.

“You bastard!” W.D. hollers, and Pennywise rears over him, a dog collar jangling mockingly on its neck. “You don’t scare me! We outran the dogs, and we’re gonna outrun you too!”

Snapping back from W.D.’s rib-shattering kick to its side, Pennywise whirls on Lettie. But the singer hasn’t been idle. She’s picked up a baseball, and cocking her arm back, she lets it fly as her father’s face pops out on Pennywise’s visage. “How about a shave…” it starts to say, and then a mouthful of baseball shatters its man-teeth.

“Bitch!” it screams, ducking away with the baseball still imbedded in its gaping mouth. “Bitch, you’ll pay!”

“Bitch, huh?” Charles is grinning his old shit-eating grin, brandishing a baseball bat almost as tall as he is. “Let’s see how well you talk after I hit a home run.”

He swings the bat with all the power in his small body, connecting solidly with Pennywise’s mouth and the baseball. The clown shrieks again and rolls, clutching its mouth. “Nice hit!” Barnum shouts. Sweat and rain are pouring down his face, plastering his hair to his skull, but he hardly notices it. “Come on, Pennywise, how much more you gonna take?”

It claws away from them and lunges at Phillip. “Gayboy!” it cackles manically, extending its hands. They are the Death Hands, groping and grasping. “Violated little gayboy!”

To his dying day, Barnum will have this image in his mind: Phillip, swinging a pull-along horse like a sling, his face alight with blazing eyes. “Eat shit,” he retorts, and lets fly. His aim is preternatural, possibly supernatural, and the heavy wooden horse smacks Pennywise dead in the face. The clown arches back until its head hits the filthy ground, the surprise on its face comically stark.

Charity doesn’t even wait for it to transform into her monster. She grasps a rusty metal spike in her hands and raises it high over her head. With a cry, she brings it down into Pennywise’s mouth.

It drives home, sending blood spraying up around her. She backs off as it writhes, and then, with a convulsive effort, spits out the spike. “You can’t!” it shrieks, scrabbling back against the caravan. They all advance, childish faces lit with fierce elation. “You can’t kill Pennywise! I’ll eat you all! Eat your circus right up!”

“No, I don’t think you will.”

They turn as one. Anne walks quietly up, her beautiful mournful face damp with rain and sweat. She holds a length of chain in her hands. “I don’t think we’ll kill you, either,” she goes on. “But I think we’ll slow you down, and I don’t think you’ll be eating any more kids this cycle.”

Pennywise utters a low moan out of its throat. “Pathetic little half-breed,” it whimpers, and now it’s an old woman, Gramma Ada, dressed in white. “Stupid little servant-girl.”

“No.” Anne smiles sweetly, the smile that snared Phillip’s heart all those years ago and enchants everyone who sees her. “I’m not. And you’re not a clown. You’re just a monster who plays dress-up. And we’re not afraid of you anymore.”

“Afraid for Caroline,” the clown sneers, but its gibbering and fearful. “Afraid she’ll stay in the deadlights. Afraid you’ll die!”

“Maybe.” Anne bends and loops the chain around Pennywise’s neck, and Barnum marvels at the courage she possesses to do that. “But you’re going deep down in the sewers to sleep. And one day, maybe seven children will come along and end you for good. And that will make it worth it.”

She locks the chain in place. “Now come,” she commands softly.

And Pennywise follows. Over to the yawning well in the far corner.

* * *

Caroline is almost at the white light when she feels the warm breath again. “I’m almost there,” she whispers to Taylor’s unseen presence.

“Yes.” She feels the cool press of the fork in her hand. “Here. It kills monsters.”

She laughs weakly. It feels so good to laugh, to come back from the edge of despair. “Am I going to have to kill the Snark now?”

“No, I don’t think that’s your job.” Taylor’s voice is fading now. “But you might need something to persuade the clown to leave you alone.”

“To persuade…?”

And then, suddenly, she’s standing on her own two feet in the massive room she first woke in. Gloomy light illuminates the room, and she sees a group of seven kids around the final well. One of them, a skinny brown girl, has a chain around Pennywise’s neck.

And he’s hanging on to the edge of the well for dear life.

She walks up as if in a dream, sloshing through mucky water. They all turn to her, but she doesn’t see their faces. She only sees the clown, whimpering on the verge of nothingness.

“Hello, Pennywise.” She stops at the edge of the well, surrounded by amazed silence. She extends Taylor’s fork. “And goodbye.”

A long whine issues from the clown’s throat. “Not the well, not the well,” it grovels. “Still hungry.”

“Yes. And you’re just going to have to live with that.” Caroline thrusts the fork at its face. “I don’t really need this to push you down this well, do I? Just to push you out of my life. And it is my life. You’re not the one who makes me a dancer. God already did that, and I’m going to do the rest. I don’t owe you a single debt. Oh, and one more thing.”

She reaches behind Pennywise’s ear and pulls out a penny, weighted and gleaming. “This doesn’t belong to you,” she says softly. “My father gave it to me. Now go, and leave our circus alone.”

She pokes at the clown with the fork, but it doesn’t need convincing. With a wail, it releases the ledge and goes plunging into the darkness, petering out into nothing.

After a long moment, while Caroline just stares down the well, her mother’s voice says, tentatively, “Caroline?”

She turns, aware that she’s filthy and muddy, that she’s scratched up and shivering with cold. “Yes, Mom,” she says, smiling tremulously. “I’m here. Thanks for coming to get me.”

And collapses in the arms of the boy who looks like, someday, he might be her father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close, folks! Next chapter up Monday February 1!


	22. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our story comes to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is properly speaking the last chapter plus the epilogue (as indicated at the chapter break), but I decided to post them together since they're fairly short.

**Chapter 20**

The light is changing. Even as they rush from the cavernous room back into the sewer pipes, the light alters, begins to glow with dawn. “How long have we been down here?” W.D. pants behind Barnum. “It can’t have been _that_ long.”

Barnum doesn’t answer. Who knows in this reality how fast time will go? All he knows is that his arms are full of his unconscious daughter, and that’s enough for now.

They slosh back through the darkness, panting, hands linked. “Hurry,” Lettie agonises. “Anything could be happening up there!”

They reach the final tunnel. “Help me,” Barnum pants, leaning against the pipe wall. Caroline is petite in build, but she’s nearly as tall as he is in this state. “W.D., Phil, help.”

Together they manouevre Caroline gently through the tunnel that gives on the well. Barnum grasps the rope tightly as W.D. helps him position Caroline over his shoulder. “Let me go first,” W.D. says, and before Barnum can protest, the boy swings out into the abyss.

Even as a child, W.D. apparently was a natural acrobat. He’s at the top of the well almost before Barnum can think, clambering back out into the basement. “Come on,” he urges, beckoning. “I’ll help you.”

Steeling himself, Barnum grasps the rope with both hands. He strains to climb upward, pushing with his feet at the well wall. W.D. helps him get Caroline over the edge, then pulls him up. He collapses next to his daughter, cupping her pallid face with his hand. Safe. Or as near to safe as she can get in this damned house.

Charity spiders up next with Charles, then Anne and Phillip ascend, then Lettie. With W.D.’s help, Barnum carries Caroline up the stairs and into the kitchen.

The daylight is strong now. Time is indeed flying, speeding by at an alarming pace. “What if we don’t change back?” Lettie wonders from the rear, but no one answers. No one wants to entertain the possibility.

They’re almost out the front door when Phillip speaks. “Anne, aren’t you coming?”

The young girl stands by the parlour door. Her hands twist together, her face pained. “I don’t think I can,” she says softly.

Barnum looks at Phillip. The boy’s face is full of agony, full of defeat. “I’m not leaving without you,” he asserts, eyes filling with tears. “I can’t.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.” Anne smiles tremulously. “Dead or alive, I don’t know, but I’ll be where you left me. That’s the real me, and you’ll have to find me there.”

Phillip goes back to her and clasps her in his arms. “I don’t want to leave not knowing if I’ll ever speak to you again,” he says in a muffled voice. “Anne, I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She hugs him back. “But you have to go, baby. Taylor and Josie are waiting for their daddy, and I’m waiting, too. Time’s flying, Phillip. Don’t waste any more of it.”

Phillip kisses her lips. His desperation is young and yet mature with sorrow, and Barnum has to look away. “Come on, Phil,” he says throatily. “We have to go.”

“I know.” Phillip backs away from Anne, and a sob hitches in his throat. “Hold on, Anne. Just hold on for me.”

“I will.” Anne looks very small standing alone in the hall. It wrenches Barnum’s heart to leave her. “W.D., take care of them. Take care of them if I don’t make it back.”

“I will.” W.D. takes Phillip gently by the arm. “Come on, brother,” he says. “We’ll meet her back at the train.”

And they step out of the house into the morning sunshine.

Instantly Barnum feels the change. He staggers with the shock of it, almost falling. Caroline suddenly feels lighter in his arms, less of a drag on his muscles. And yet despite his full-grown strength he suddenly feels very, very tired.

_Of course I do. I just aged thirty years in a second._

He looks around at his friends. Every one of them is filthy, splattered with mud and shit, stinking and panting and exhausted. Their eyes are terrified and bright, their faces wearing their proper ages again. They went into the black together, and now they’re back in the blue.

Except for Anne.

“Let’s go,” Barnum says, shifting Caroline in his aching arms. He doesn’t say it, but he’s very afraid that the circus won’t be standing when they get back.

* * *

The circus is still standing.

Everything has been packed up, that’s the first thing Phillip notices. The second thing he notices is that people are watching for them. “There they are!” someone shouts, and the call is taken up.

“Where were you?” Nora cries. She holds Josie in her arms, cradling her to her bosom. “You all disappeared last night, and now it’s mid-morning…”

“We didn’t mean to be gone that long, believe me.” And it really didn’t seem like they were. Phillip takes his baby daughter, kissing her face with silent fervency. He doesn’t dare ask about Anne. “What’s happening?”

“Sid Henson got in early this morning with the boiler parts.” O’Malley stares at them, his face pale with shock. “Train’s good to go, but town’s just about lost its head. We thought the men were gonna shoot us up, but then they went back to town about three in the morning, and it’s been nothing but gunshots and screams since then.”

The cycle is ending. Pennywise is having its last big feast, and then it’ll sleep…for who knows how long. “Let’s get out of here,” Barnum says, striding past with Caroline. “Everybody, get on the train! We’re blowing out of here.”

No more explanations are offered or demanded. Performers rush for the train, anxious to get their feet off Derry soil once and for all. Phillip heads for his and Anne’s boxcar, Josie clutched possessively to his chest. W.D. is at his shoulder.

He opens the door and steps in. The first thing he sees is Taylor, curled on the bed with his mother. He clutches a fork in his hand. “Daddy,” he says as Phillip kneels by the bed. “You didn’t die.”

“No, I didn’t.” Phillip smooths his son’s hair back from his sweaty forehead. He’s suddenly sure that Taylor knows exactly what went on in that house, although he will never know _how_. “I’m okay. Everyone’s okay. Are you?”

Then Taylor does a peculiar thing. At least, it’s peculiar for him. He smiles, as bright as daylight. “Mama woke up,” he says simply, and no words could be sweeter to Phillip’s soul.

Heart pounding, he bends over Anne’s still form. “Anne?” he asks fearfully. “Can you hear me, Anne?”

For a long minute, she doesn’t respond.

Then her eyes flutter open, and she looks into his face. “Phillip,” she croaks. She’s weak, but no trace of fever mars her doe eyes. They are perfectly lucid, perfectly beautiful. “I guess we beat the devil again, didn’t we?”

At some point, he supposes he’ll have to stop holding her, but it’s not going to be anytime soon.

* * *

Everyone is on the train. Barnum leans out, his dirty hands anchoring him to his little world. “Come with us,” he says to Sid, who stands nearby with the cart he used to bring back the parts. The man rode back all through the night, stopping only long enough to get a fresh horse, and they will forever be in his debt. “This is no town for a good man.”

“It’s my town, though.” Sid’s mild face, lined now with thoughtful grief, looks up at him. “My father’s still got to be buried, and it’s home, for better or worse. It’s enough for me to help you get out of it.”

“There have been killings in town, haven’t there?” Barnum asks quietly, and Sid nods.

What they’ll never hear of is the most spectacular killing of all: the Methodist lay preacher who denounced them on Sunday ended up slaughtering his whole family before offing himself. Yes, violence has a nasty way of spreading in Derry. “I’ll be fine,” Sid says, and Barnum can almost believe it; after all, if you scratch Derry’s back, it’ll scratch yours. “You count on that. You folks just get out of here and never come back. You hear? _Never_ come back.”

“You can count on that,” Barnum returns. He hesitates, then pulls himself back into the train. The engine is thrumming powerfully, and it’s only a few miles to freedom. He knows they’ll make it. Having faced the monster in its lair, they’ll make it. “Thank you, Sid. You and your father both. We’d be dead if not for you.”

“Maybe I’ll see a show in New York sometime.” Sid’s smile says that’s not likely. Men like him never stray far from home, and maybe that’s okay too. A place like Derry needs a few good souls in it. “Take care, and don’t stop for anything till you hit Bangor.”

“Keep safe, Sid.” Barnum steps back inside and gives the signal. The train groans and then inches forward, slowly building up speed. He can hear the occasional gunshot from town, but in a couple of hours even that will die down. Derry will survive, and in its own little way it’ll thrive, and sooner or later Pennywise will return.

And they’ll be far, far away when it does.

He goes back through the train. In his family’s boxcar, Caroline is waking up, ensconced in the arms of her sister and mother, and she’s smiling.

* * *

**Epilogue**

They soon forget Derry.

Everything else around those fateful couple of weeks remains clear. Phillip has some idea that, at some point, they had engine trouble on route to Bangor – they have the sales receipts to show the purchase of a new boiler, and he remembers clearly the day they were stalled – and of course there was the terrible accident with the collapse of the tent, and Josie’s birth, and Anne’s illness. But the details soon smudge like a half-dry watercolour painting, and even the knowledge that he is forgetting itself becomes unclear.

It’s almost Christmas, and they’ve been back in New York for well over a month. Anne’s recovery has been slow and long, but she’s almost back to her old self. In another couple of months, she will begin training again for her act. Josie is thriving on love and crisp winter air, a sturdy little baby with a full set of lungs, and she’s become the apple of her brother’s eye.

As for Taylor, he draws odd pictures of clowns from time to time, but Phillip doesn’t worry too much about it. In another couple of months it’ll be something else. There’s no telling with that brilliant little mind.

“Caroline had another fight with Barnum.” Anne’s tone is too casual from where she sits by the fire; her eyes laugh merrily. “He’s having a little trouble adjusting to her costume.”

“It’s stunning on her.” Phillip scribbles a thank-you letter to one of their patrons; the sitting-room fire is a warm glow on his face. “And for that reason, Barnum will never stop fretting.”

“Well, he can’t keep her contained forever.” Anne rocks in her chair, watching Taylor colour by the fire. Josie is cooing in her pram. “Maybe another year, and then she’ll have her own act for sure.”

“As she should. At least P.T. can’t argue with the ticket sales.” Phillip looks up to see Anne’s face looking pensive. “Are you all right?” he asks concernedly.

“I am.” She smiles at him. “Sometimes I just think about how close we came, that’s all.”

“I try _not_ to think about that, thank you.”

“Still. It’s like a blur, everything that happened…but I remember the fever. I remember I thought Gramma Ada was after me…”

She falls into silence.

“Well, she’s long gone and you’re here.” Phillip signs the letter and stretches, cracking his back. “Umph. I’ve been sitting in one place too long.”

“We could take a walk,” Anne suggests. “It’s a beautiful night, and Charity said they would be taking a turn in the park later.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Phillip folds the letter in neat thirds and places it in a waiting envelope. “You almost done there, buddy?” he says to Taylor.

“Almost, Daddy,” comes the reply.

Phillip gets up and goes to where his son is bent studiously over his drawing. It’s a house, a big Cape Cod that looks like it’s seen better days. For a moment a shiver goes through his heart; he thinks he knows this house, from somewhere deep in the recesses of memory. He thinks he might once have been frightened of it, the way children are when they pass a place they believe is haunted.

“What’s that?” he asks curiously, trying to hold onto the fleeting impression just long enough to place it.

And then Taylor shrugs, and it’s gone like a wisp of smoke in the wind, leaving nothing behind. “Nothing, Daddy,” he says, putting down his crayon. “Just a house.”

“Really? Who lives there?”

“A Snark,” Taylor says, and Phillip laughs, because kids will be kids.

And they bundle their children up, and hold hands, and together they walk out to meet their friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: To those of you who have read or watched "IT," you'll recall that people who leave Derry tend to forget it. Just thought I would note that. :)
> 
> Well, we have finally come to the end. Thank you all so, so much for taking this journey with me! You make it a pleasure to write in this fandom!


End file.
